Demons in the Rough
by Bakufan15
Summary: An unfortunate change in circumstance and a mistimed return leads to two demons who hold the family name 'Kamado'. Even still, Tanjirou will fight (fang and claw, if he has to) towards his goal. [DISCONTINUED]
1. Chapter 1

Tanjirou was content. He'd sold all the charcoal, helped a few of the villagers with odd jobs, and he was headed home a bit early - all in all, a productive day, if he did say so himself. On tired legs, Tanjirou walked back up the hill that led to his home at the foot of the mountain, basking in the soft scent of fresh snow.

As Tanjirou passed a cottage, he heard some rustling from the inside, and a moment later, the window flew open. "Tanjirou! Are you headed back up the mountain?"

Old man Saburo lived alone, ever since his family was killed in some sort of accident, nobody knew the specifics, and the old man didn't care to talk about it. Either way, he was generous, sometimes giving Tanjirou food to snack on for his trek back up the mountain, or letting him use his cottage as a rest stop to recover his energy.

"I am. My family is waiting on me," Tanjirou said simply.

A look of slight concern washed over Saburo's face, and Tanjirou noticed him look up at the sky to check the position of the sun. "Travelling at night is dangerous. You can stay here for the night, and head up the mountain tomorrow morning."

Tanjirou himself shot a glance at the sun. "I've still got a few hours of daylight left. I think I can make it back before nightfall."

Saburo frowned, an expression dashing across his face that Tanjirou couldn't quite discern, but he didn't protest. "Be careful."

"I will!" Tanjirou said with a big smile. "Have a good night!"

With that, Tanjirou continued his trek up the mountain, focusing his mind on the feeling of snow crunching beneath his feet.

* * *

"Onii-chan!" a high-pitched voice squealed, and a moment later, Hanako came running from the house. She threw her arms around Tanjirou's leg, squeezing him like a tiny vice. She had a habit of doing such things, and Tanjirou found it endearing, so he just smiled, patting her head affectionately before prying her off so that he could set down the charcoal basket.

"Welcome back, Tanjirou," his mother said once he came inside. She was sitting in the reading chair, Rokuta in her lap, and on the other side of the room, Nezuko sat, fidgeting with some sort of embroidery. "There's still some of the stew left from dinner in the pot."

"Thanks," Tanjirou said, tiredly scuffling his way over to the fire. Absentmindedly, he got a bowl and spooned out a portion of stew, humming quietly to himself as he took a seat at the dinner table.

As he ate, he relished in the comfort that was their simple home; his close-knit family surrounding him, peacefully enjoying each others presence after a long day of working. When his father had passed a few years prior, they'd all been able to help each other through the grief and support one another as they mourned. That connection they shared, it was something special, and Tanjirou wouldn't trade it for the world.

Everyone milled about for a while longer, occupying themselves with chores or hobbies as evening faded into night. Tanjirou was one of the first ones to turn in, completely exhausted after his round trip to the village. He pulled out futons for the entire family, setting them up on the cabin floor. With the help of the comforting warmth of the blanket, it wasn't long before sleep overtook him.

* * *

Tanjirou awoke to a putrid smell. Scrunching his nose in disgust, he sat up slightly, looking around the room.

_Maybe some food was left on the counter from dinner, _he thought. From where he was on the floor, all he could see was the rest of his family laid out on futons, soundly asleep. A quick glance at the fireplace told him that he hadn't been sleeping for long, as the coals were still warm, giving off a soft orange glow.

The smell was that of rotting flesh, as if meat had been kept too long; it made him want to vomit, and it was only getting stronger. With a frown, he covered himself up under the blanket, attempting to block out the smell so that he could go back to sleep. Finding the source could wait until morning.

Sometimes he hated his potent sense of smell. At times, it was useful, like being able to sniff out a coming storm or tell if food was still good to eat, but other times it was like a curse. Smells that would simply be unpleasant to most people were unbearable to him, such as rotten food, body odor, or, gods forbid, _flatulence_.

In an attempt to block out the odor, Tanjirou stuffed the blanket up against his face and breathed through his mouth, minimizing the amount of stench that could get through to his nose. Still, the smell continued to grow, becoming more and more potent by the second.

_Alright, that's it_, Tanjirou thought, mentally preparing himself to leave the comforting warmth of the futon to investigate. Perhaps something in their meat storage had spoiled.

The moment before Tanjirou made the move to get up, a soft scratching sound resounded throughout the room as the sliding door to the home opened.

Tanjirou's breath caught in his throat. _An intruder? A robber? _

Time seemed to slow down as a hand curled around the doorway, long nails resembling claws capping off every finger. A moment later, a man wearing a simple black suit with a white hat that sat on curly black hair stepped around the corner. Tanjirou's breath quickened. _Who was this man? Why was he here?_

He took a few steps inside, walking towards the spot where the family was asleep on the floor. As he got closer, the soft glow of the embers left in the fireplace illuminated his face, showing unnaturally pale skin. Tanjirou simply laid there, frozen by an unnatural sense of fear as the person crouched down mere feet away from Tanjirou's mother. . A glance at his eyes showed pupils like slits against an orange-red iris.

The moment he saw the man next to his mother, all fear fled his body. Whoever this man was, every bone, _every nerve_ inside of Tanjirou was screaming that he was bad news. Bad news that was now sitting next to Tanjirou's own mother, staring at her sleeping face with a gaze he couldn't discern.

Tanjirou jumped to his feet, throwing the blanket at the intruder. The man didn't even flinch as he knocked the blanket away, throwing it across the room with a single, quick swipe.

"Get away from my mother!" Tanjirou shouted it, clenching his fists, "Who are you?"

The man didn't respond, he simply put his hand down onto Tanjirou's mother's neck, holding her down as she started to stir, woken by the yelling. The second she realized what was happening Tanjirou saw her eyes flicker with fear, and she attempted to scream. No sound came out, which could only mean that the man was crushing her throat.

"Get off of her!" Tanjirou yelled. The rest of his family was coming awake now. He could see the look of horror in his mother's eyes as she clawed at the man's arm, struggling to breathe.

"Shut up, will you?" the man's voice was cold and indifferent as he just shifted his hand, shearing through Kie's neck like a hot knife through butter. Her head lopped off, rolling onto its side, lifeless eyes staring back at Tanjirou.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He heard Nezuko let out a gasp of horror. All he could do, however, is stare with shock as the man stood, licking the blood off of his hands.

The man, the _beast_, for this man could not be human, grabbed the nearest body to Kie's lifeless corpse: Rokuta, who had been sleeping next to her. The child's clothing was soaked in his mother's blood, his normally cheerful, happy face struck with an expression of pure, unfiltered horror. Tanjirou wanted to move, he wanted to run at the intruder and save his brother, but his body would not obey his commands, it was frozen on the spot.

"Rokuta!" Nezuko screamed, and next thing Tanjirou knew, she was running by him, directly at the man. She tried to grab Rokuta from his grasp, but he simply turned to the side, effortlessly dodging, before slashing her across the back with his claws. Nezuko fell to the ground with a hard _thud_.

The man didn't even waste a moment before squeezing Rokuta's neck, the cottage echoing with a sickening _crack, _before dropping the lifeless body to the ground. He could hear Hanako crying behind him, and a glance backwards showed her, Shigeru, and Takeo clinging onto each other, bodies shaking with fear.

Something broke inside of Tanjirou. He ran to the kitchen, fumbling at the counter for a knife. He grabbed the nearest, sharpest one he could find, before turning right back around and running at the man. If he could kill or injure this _monster_, this _murderer_, then he could at least save his remaining siblings. A guttural yell escaped his throat as he ran, knife beared.

As he got close, Tanjirou saw a slight shift in the man's demeanor, tilting slightly to one side. If Tanjirou didn't change anything about his approach, the man would do the exact same thing he did to Nezuko to Tanjirou himself. On instinct, he _threw_ the knife in the direction that the man looked like he was going to try to dodge. As he did so, Tanjirou jumped forwards, throwing his head forward harder than he ever had before.

_Caught between a rock and a hard place,_ Tanjirou thought to himself. By dodging the knife, the man would be vulnerable to a headbutt from Tanjirou's inexplicably hard skull, and if he'd dodged Tanjirou himself, he'd have been hit by the knife.

Just as Tanjirou had hoped, the man jumped out of the way of the knife, leaving himself vulnerable. Then, a split second later, he simply stepped out of the way of the headbutt, moving faster than any normal person would ever be able to. Before Tanjirou could even regain his footing, an arm slammed into his back, throwing him into the wall with enough force to shatter his ribcage on impact.

Pain _exploded_ across his entire chest, pain like nothing he had ever experienced before. The pain from when he'd accidentally tipped a brazier full of hot coals onto himself couldn't even compare with this. Tanjirou would have let out a scream of pain if not for the fact that he couldn't breathe, all the air thrown from his lungs. He couldn't get up, either, he was too injured to even move. All he could do was watch as the man picked up the knife, casually walking over to Hanako, Shigeru, and Takeo. With a single swipe, he sliced the group in half, from Hanako's shoulder all the way to Takeo's hip.

Tanjirou tried to breathe, but it came in quick, panicked bursts. Each time he inhaled, his right side flared with pain, he probably had a punctured lung. He couldn't move, and the man simply turned and walked over to Tanjirou as the final three siblings' corpses slumped to the floor, blood staining the futons.

_This is it_, Tanjirou thought, _This is where I die._

The man crouched down in front of Tanjirou, staring at him like he had to Tanjirou's mother just before he'd killed her. Then, to Tanjirou's shock, the man's soft, evil smile turned to a frown, and then a look of disgust.

"What's this?" he said, grabbing at the side of Tanjirou's face, "Hanafuda earrings? Where did you get these, boy?"

Tanjirou didn't respond out of a combination of spite and the fact that his body wouldn't let him, considering the state of his lungs. This, however, seemed to just enrage the man even more.

He dug his fingers into Tanjirou's stomach, fingers tearing through his flesh with ease. Tanjirou could only groan with pain, his lungs unable to even scream anymore. "I said, where did you get these, _boy_?" he spat the last word.

Somehow, Tanjirou found it within himself to speak. "My father...passed them down to me. In the family...for generations." He could taste the blood from his lungs on the air as he spoke.

He heaved in a breath as the man removed his fingers, standing up. He walked in a circle, Tanjirou unable to see his face. When he finally turned around, there was a sickening smile plastered across his face, and he was laughing.

"I can't believe it," he said, walking in a little circle, "His ancestors...reduced to _this_? The one that gave me so much trouble over three hundred years ago...has become _this?_ Ironic."

_What is this man saying_, Tanjirou thought, _What does this even mean?_

"Oh I know!" he said, crouching down again, "How about I make you into a demon? It'll put the final nail in the coffin for your sickening bloodline."

_Demon? As in the man eating demons they tell kids about to scare them? _Tanjirou didn't have any time to think about it any further before the man simply jammed his finger straight into Tanjirou's skull, piercing straight through the bone.

Despite his lungs screaming in protest, Tanjirou let out a scream of pain, vision spotting with man just smiled, pulling his finger from his skull, before standing up. Tanjirou could feel himself losing consciousness by the second.

"Don't worry, I'll leave some scraps for you and your sister," Tanjirou heard the man say as he lost consciousness, "Maybe you'll tear each other apart fighting over them."

* * *

"_Yoriichi-san, why do you think it took Michikatsu three days to transform into a demon?" the words echoed throughout Tanjirou's mind as if they'd been spoken by his own mouth, yet the voice was not his own. He tried to get a look around the room, only to find that he had absolutely no control over his body, as if he was watching a stage-play unfold before his eyes._

_The man, Yoriichi, sat across the table from Tanjirou, sipping quietly at his cup of tea. Behind him, tapestries hung from the wall, the bright colors contrasting against the shoddy, worn walls. They reminded him of ancient Japanese infrastructure. Tanjirou's inability to control his body was only reinforced when his arm moved against his will, to pick up the tea cup on his side of the table before lifting it to his mouth to take a drink. It smelled of plum and spice. _

_Tanjirou saw a look flash across the man's face, something between grief and anger, but he quickly covered it back up with a look of indifference. "It's simple, my dear friend," he said, setting his own cup down. "He, just like you and I do, had the sun flowing through his veins." _

Tanjirou bolted upright, breathing heavily.  
The first thing he noticed was the complete lack of pain. The memories of what had just transpired were still fresh in his mind, alongside the odd dream he'd had while passed out. Before he'd fallen to unconsciousness, his entire rib cage had been shattered, his back quite possibly broken, and cuts lined the sides of his body. Last thing he remembered was the intruder jamming a finger into his skull. Throwing his hand up to his forehead, Tanjirou felt for a wound, but was only met with smooth skin under hard, dried blood.

The next thing he noticed was the _scent_. The entire room _reeked_ of blood, to the point that it was completely overwhelming, blocking out all of his other senses.

Blood had an odd scent. There was a metallic tinge to it, a bit like iron, but at the same time it had a reeking, rotting smell at times, especially in large quantities. Despite the fact that blood was red, if Tanjirou had to assign a color to the scent, it would be pure, dark black. To him, the scent of blood represented the destruction of happiness.

Right now, however, the smell of blood didn't make Tanjirou want to keel over and vomit. It didn't even make him want to plug his nose to reduce the potency of the scent. Looking around the room at his slaughtered, mutilated family, the smell of blood made Tanjirou very, _very_ _hungry._

Tanjirou sat, frozen on the spot as he took in the scene laid out in front of him. His family's corpses laid where they'd died, their blood staining the floors and walls. Their bodies had been mutilated, chunks of flesh having been torn off of their bodies. Hanako's beautiful face had been marred by long, thin claw marks, and there was a hole where Rokuta's heart should have been.

_I'll leave some scraps for you and your sister, _the man's words echoed throughout Tanjirou's mind. Looking down at their bodies, Tanjirou's stomach panged. He was hungrier than he'd ever been before, and that fact was only compounded by the metallic smell of blood that was filling his lungs, a scent that should've made him want to vomit.

Tanjirou felt his mouth water like a child's before a feast. Unable to think straight, Tanjirou pushed himself onto his knees, reaching a hand out towards his family, revealing long, sharp fingernails on the ends of his fingers. On wobbly legs, Tanjirou scrambled towards the bodies, the closest of which was his mother. His eyes glanced over at where her head rolled away from her body, once beautiful eyes cold and empty. Right as he got close, his legs failed under him and he fell onto her, burying his head into her yukata.

His body screamed at him to eat, the sweet scent of blood urging him to fall to those instincts and just bite into the corpse. Saliva dripped from his mouth, and in an attempt to stop it, his tongue ran by long, sharp fangs in place of where his canines should've been.

Tanjirou let out a screaming sob, tears collecting in the corners of his eyes. He gripped his mother's yukata in his fists, clenching onto it as hard as if he'd die if he let go. The force of his grief completely overrode anything and everything else. His body screamed at him to just bite into her corpse, to simply satisfy his hunger, but whatever was going on with his body, he hadn't lost his mind. These were his family, the people who he loved more than anything else on earth, and they were gone.

"I'm sorry!" his voice was raw and coarse, as if he hadn't had water in days, "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you!"

He knew nobody was listening. His entire family was dead, it was the middle of the night, and their house was kilometers from the nearest other sign of human life. Even still, he didn't care if anyone could hear his cries, he needed to get it out of his system. Years worth of experiences with his parents and siblings had all been invalidated in a few quick seconds at the hands of an intruder.

Tanjirou had no idea how long he sat there, and frankly, he didn't care either. He cried until his throat was raw and he had no tears left to shed, and then he cried longer. He wanted nothing more than to just lie down and die, to let the world take him to his family. Why was _he_ the one to survive. Out of all of his siblings, why had the man chosen to spare Tanjirou?

It felt like he was in a dream. His mind was cloudy and it was hard to take in everything that was happening. As he lay on the ground, his head buried in his mother's yukata, searching for a reason to get up, he found himself questioning all that had happened. Why was he suddenly uninjured? What was with the long, sharp fingernails on the tips of his fingers and why did he have fangs?

_Why did the smell of blood make his stomach ache with hunger?_

It was like there were two parts of him fighting each other. One part of him was telling him to bite down, to devour his family's bodies which he was certain would satisfy his hunger. It didn't make sense, it was as if new instincts had been forced into his body. He couldn't say _why_ he knew that eating would fill him, just that it would.

The other part of him that was in conflict was his mind. Despite his instincts screaming at him to eat, to just forsake any other thoughts and gorge himself, he still had his mind. He still had a moral compass. The concept of eating humans at all, especially his family who he loved more than anything else on the planet, made him want to vomit despite the overwhelming hunger. His body was telling him to eat, but his mind, his moral compass, held it back.

The once disgusting scent of blood now smelled sweet, which caused his stomach to pang, and he absolutely _hated_ that. The mere thought of eating another person, of doing something so morally _repulsing_ made him want to keel over and empty his stomach. He felt _sick_.

So, he tried to focus on other scents. First and foremost was his mother's scent, one of charcoal ashes and snowbell flowers. It was the most familiar of scent he knew, as he'd grown up around it, smelling it since before he even knew that his sense of smell was abnormally keen.

The next scent he noticed was the very same smell of rotting flesh he'd smelled moments before the intruder had entered their home. The second he picked it out, he clenched his fist, anger welling up inside of him. That man was the one responsible for all of _this_, for the complete destruction of everything Tanjirou loved.

That man had taken everything from Tanjirou, and he didn't even know his _name_.

The next scent Tanjirou noticed was actually his own. Normally, it was very difficult for him to discern his own smell. He was around it all day, every day, and so it had essentially become used to it, and that was precisely the reason that Tanjirou noticed when it was different.

It was hard for him to put his finger on what he'd smelled like before, but if he had to make his best estimate, he'd say campfire ash mixed with charcoal (his entire family smelled of charcoal in some capacity). Now, though, it had changed. He still smelled campfire ash, but it also smelled a bit...sour, in a way. It was like the smell that something had when it spent too long sitting out. Not quite rotting, but it wasn't exactly nice on the nose.

He was still curled up in a ball, his head buried in his mother's yukata. He didn't want to move, because he knew that nothing but pain awaited him the moment he left his mother's cold embrace. He had no idea how long he'd been sitting there, and frankly, he didn't care.

That is, until he noticed another, distinct scent in the room. Nezuko had a sweet scent, that of sakura blossoms with a hint of his family's ever present charcoal. Now, however, he smelled that same scent, but with a sour tinge, the same one that he'd smelled on himself. As if on queue, he heard shuffling.

For the first time in a while, Tanjirou lifted his head from his mother's embrace to look around the room. Across the floor, in the spot where she'd fallen after getting slashed by the intruder, Nezuko was shifting, pushing herself to her feet.

"N-nezuko?" Tanjirou's voice was coarse and his bones ached, but he forced himself onto his feet, rushing over.

_Nezuko is okay, Nezuko is alive, Nezuko is okay,_ he thought, panicked. He scrambled over, nothing on his mind but the fact that someone else lived, _Nezuko is alive._

"Nezuko! Don't get up, you're hurt!" Tanjirou said, noticing the claw marks in the back of her yukata and the dried blood that surrounded it. Nezuko ignored him, pushing herself onto her feet, swaying slightly. Tanjirou slowed to a stop a few meters away, sensing that something was wrong. As he got closer, the tainted smell grew stronger, and the implications of that fact finally registered in Tanjirou's mind. If her scent had changed, just like his, and she'd been left alive, just like he had…

_Maybe you'll tear each other apart fighting over them. _The man's final words echoed throughout Tanjirou's mind and his heart sank.

"Nezuko!" Tanjirou tried again to get her attention, but his sister simply stood there, swaying, hair obscuring her face. When Tanjirou saw saliva drop to the floor, all of his suspicions were confirmed. His own mouth was watering, afterall.

Tanjirou closed the distance between them in a single moment, wrapping Nezuko in a hug.

"Grahhh!" Nezuko grumbled, an inhuman growl. She immediately started to struggle against Tanjirou's hold, but the boy did not let go.  
"I'm sorry," he said, "I'm so sorry, Nezuko!" The smell was strong up close, and he felt sharp, long claws dig into his back as Nezuko tried to free herself from his grip. Tanjirou winced, but kept holding on.

"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you or anyone! You ran in without hesitation to try to save Takeo, and all I did was sit and watch!" Nezuko continued to growl and struggle against Tanjirou. Every time that she slashed at Tanjirou's back, he felt the wounds knit right back together a moment later, healing seemlessly.

"You're hungry, aren't you Nezuko?"  
Nezuko paused for a moment, and so Tanjirou continued.

"I'm hungry, too. I don't know what's going on, who that man was, why I suddenly have claws and fangs, why my body wants me to eat," Tanjirou squeezed the hug tighter, and Nezuko's struggling lessened, "All I know is that these people are our family. We can't eat them, we can't eat _anyone_. I don't know why we're hungry like this, but we need to fight it off. Nezuko, be strong!" his voice died, and he whispered, "Please…"

Then, Nezuko stopped, her arms falling to her sides. Nezuko's entire body shook, and her legs gave out. Tanjirou slid to the ground with her, keeping the embrace, and a moment later, he felt his shoulder go wet as Nezuko's incoherent growling turned into sobs. Tanjirou didn't have any tears left to share, so he just sat, holding his sister while she shook from the force of her emotions.

Tanjirou finally pulled away from the hug, wiping Nezuko's hair out of her face. Tears rolled down from slitted, pink eyes, her skin was paler than normal, and she had long, sharp fangs in place of her kanines.

"Nezuko," Tanjirou said, "we need to get out of here. That man might still be somewhere nearby and he could hurt someone if we don't go warn everyone we can. Plus, we need to figure out what all _this_ is," he gestured to both of their bodies. Nezuko just stared back at him with a half dazed stare, as if she was only processing bits and pieces of what he was saying.

"Nezuko?" Tanjirou said, "Nezuko, talk to me."

Nezuko just shifted, grunting softly.

"Nezuko. We need to _leave_." he said, pulling her to her feet. Nezuko didn't resist, but she didn't make to do anything else, either. Her eyes glanced over the bodies that littered the floor, and Tanjirou noticed that she was clenching her fists, the claws digging into her palms. Saliva still dripped from her mouth, but she looked like she was holding herself back.

_It's like she's been reduced to a primal state,_ Tanjirou thought, _She won't speak, it's like she's lost her full ability to think. Something is wrong_. _We need to _go.

Tanjirou ran to the other side of the room, where he grabbed both Nezuko's black haori, as well as his own checkered one, and his father's axe. He handed Nezuko her haori, and she put it on without issue. Grabbing her hand, Tanjirou headed for the door.

One last look back at his family's bodies and he felt both his stomach and heart pang.

_I promise I'll come back to give you a proper burial,_ he thought, _I just need to go get help first. I need to figure out what happened to me and Nezuko, and what's wrong with her._

Before he could stop himself from leaving, Tanjirou turned, running from the house into the night, Nezuko in tow. _I'll get to the bottom of this. I promise._


	2. Chapter 2: Escape

**Chapter 2: Escape**

* * *

Tanjirou just kept running. There were so many things running through his head at the same time that it just felt like his mind was blank. He didn't want to think about what had already happened, the things that he could not change, so he instead chose to focus on the _now_.

His grip on Nezuko's hand was tight, and as they ran through the snow, he almost felt like he was dragging her. One thing was for certain: he was running a lot faster than he normally could. His breaths came quick and easy, which was oddly concerning in a way, so he focused on the rhythmic crunching of snow beneath his shoes. A glance back showed that the Kamado home was long since gone, and he couldn't even smell the blood anymore. Instead his nose was filled with the familiar, fresh scents of pine needles and new-fallen snow.  
Tanjirou gripped onto Nezuko's hand a little harder, trying to force himself into focusing on the task at hand, to keep his mind off of the corpses of his family that he left behind. Nezuko was still alive, and something was wrong with her, which made her the priority.

Nezuko hadn't said a single word since she woke up. Her hair had changed, turning orange as it reached the end, and her eyes had shifted from a soft purplish-red to a bright pink. The slits she had before had since disappeared, replaced by blank, emotionless pupils. Then, of course, there was the fangs and claws, two attributes that he himself knew he possessed.

Tanjirou feared what the rest of him looked like.

Shaking his head, Tanjirou focused back on the task at hand: getting help. _Where do I go, where do I go? _he thought. _Who would be able to help? Who is closest?_

When Tanjirou saw the rooftop of a small cottage in the distance, he cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. Halfway between the village and Tanjirou's home, right at the base of the mountain, sat old man Saburo's little home.

Saburo was one of the kindest people that Tanjirou knew, frequently allowing Tanjirou to stay the night at his cottage if it was getting too late to head back up that mountain, sometimes even giving him dinner or snacking foods for the road. He was a little rough around the edges at times, but Tanjirou always attributed that to his loneliness after his family was inexplicably killed a few years prior.

Then again, the little house could have belonged to the worst, most annoying person in the entire village and Tanjirou still would have been relieved.

Tanjirou doubled his pace, closing the distance between himself and the cottage as fast as his legs would allow. Nezuko, of course, kept pace with him, and she didn't even look like she was breaking a sweat.

"Saburo-san!" Tanjirou yelled, banging on the door the moment he got there. He was panting, his breathing labored for just a moment before it rapidly got easier to breathel. "Saburo-san! Please open the door, It's Tanjirou and Nezuko! We need your help, please!"

Tanjirou gave a moment of silence before banging on the door again, and this time his fist made the wood chip. "Please wake up!"

Finally, Tanjirou heard shuffling from the inside, so he stopped banging. A moment later, the door swung open to reveal a very disgruntled looking Saburo holding a candle.

"Tanjirou?" he said, running his eyes, "What are you doing here in the middle of the…"

He trailed off when he looked up. The second he made eye contact with Tanjirou, he completely froze, his eyes going wide with...fear?

"Saburo-san, we need - " Tanjirou started, taking a step forward, but he was cut off.

"No!" Saburo's voice came out as a yelp, "stay back!"

The old man dropped the candle which fell to the floor and went out, has he scrambled back, away from the door. Tanjirou couldn't quite see his face due to the darkness of the room, especially after the candle fizzled out when it hit the ground, but he'd never heard Saburo, no, _anyone_ be that scared. Especially that scared _of him_.

The next words out of his mouth would be etched into Tanjirou's mind.

"Demons! Man-eating demons! Get out! Stay away!"

Tanjirou's heart sunk at the words. He already knew it, he just...he didn't want to accept it.

Everything lined up with the legends. The stories about demons that roamed the night, killing and eating humans. They had fangs and claws, and their skin was extremely pale. Their eyes were oddly colored with changing pupils, and most importantly, they had a craving for human flesh.

Tanjirou knew what had happened, he just didn't want to confirm that it was reality. He didn't want to accept that his family was dead, and he didn't want to accept that all the legends, the ones told to children to scare them, were true. He didn't want to accept everything that had happened in the last couple of hours.

He didn't want to accept the fact that he, along with Nezuko, had been turned into demons.

Tanjirou's legs collapsed under him and he fell to his knees, the weight of everything that had happened holding him down. Saburo's incoherent yelling had ceased, but Tanjirou hardly noticed. He fell over forwards, rolling into a ball with his forehead on the floorboards of the cottage.

"I know!" Tanjirou was half yelling half crying. "I know that we're demons! I know we don't have any right to do this, but we're asking you for your help. Please, we beg of you!"

Tanjirou heard Nezuko shuffle her feet behind him, but otherwise, she didn't say anything.

Tanjirou didn't hear Saburo say anything nor move, so he continued. "Please, Saburo-san! The rest of my family was killed by a demon and something is wrong with Nezuko. We were the only ones left!"

Tanjirou spared a look up from the floor. He saw Saburo, standing on the other side of the cottage with a look of mixed shock and fear plastered on his face.

"Tanjirou? Is that really you?" Saburo said.

"Yes, it's really us," Tanjirou cringed a little inside, "I'm sorry."

Tanjirou heard metal clatter to the floor, and looking up, he saw that a knife had fallen to the floor, presumably one that Saburo had been holding.

"No, that's not right…" Saburo said, "Tanjirou is a human. I've known him since he was little, He's stayed the night here before. Nezuko, too. She's such a sweet little girl."

Tanjirou was...not sure how to respond to that. He'd been turned into a demon, that much was certain. He may have been in denial for a while, but at some point he had to accept the truth.

Before Tanjirou could respond, however, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Saliva dripped down onto the floor next to him. Tanjirou's head snapped up to see Nezuko, staring at Saburo with an indecipherable look on her face, saliva collecting at the corners of her mouth.

The very next moment, Tanjirou was on his feet, standing in front of her. He saw that her pupils had shifted to slits again. Tanjirou put his hands on her shoulders and shook her, "Nezuko! Get a hold of yourself!"

His sister blinked, and when she opened her eyes again, the slitted pupils were gone, replaced by the blank, empty ones from before. Tanjirou stared into her unblinking eyes for a few more moments before looking over his shoulder to Saburo.

"Please...I know that we've been turned into demons but something is wrong with Nezuko. She can't control herself and she won't speak. It's like she's been reduced to barely above an animal. I don't know what to do."

He locked gazes with Saburo for a moment, and he could see the shift in his facial structure as he thought and considered things. Then, he sighed.

"I don't have very much knowledge of demons, but your sister is acting more like a demon than you are. We can talk, but I'd be more comfortable if your sister was put somewhere that she can't get to me first. Let's move her to the shed."

* * *

Tomioka Giyuu dashed between the trees at a speed that would be nearly unregistrable to a normal person. He wasn't the fastest pillar, that spot belonged to Kocho Shinobu, but he was far from the slowest. Even then, he was about a day and a half behind schedule. He'd gotten caught up tracking down a demon in another nearby village that wasn't even in his mission statement.

His job hadn't exactly been made easier by the fact that the villagers hadn't believed him when he told them he was a demon slayer and tried to arrest him. It was a nuisance that kept him from doing his job properly, the fifth time this month something like that had happened.

"_Tomioka-san, you've got to be more discreet!"_ Shinobu's words echoed in Giyuu's mind, "_To a lot of people, demons are just myths, so just openly telling people that you're a demon slayer just will give them even _more _reasons to laugh at you."_ He even heard it in her happy, two-sided voice.

Shaking his head and thoughts clear, Giyuu focused back on the task at hand. He was already a day and a half behind schedule, which meant a day and a half longer for the demon he was sent to slay to kill somebody.

His mission statement was to investigate the reports from a village near the base of Kumotori mountain about married men (and exclusively married men) randomly disappearing. Odds are it was a demon with some sort of twisted, contrived goal and was specifically targeting that demographic of people, and as a demon slayer, it was Giyuu's job to put an end to it. Giyuu continued his run, weaving between trees, feeling the crunching of snow beneath his feet.

* * *

"Stay here, Nezuko," Tanjirou said, stepping away from the doorway, "I'll be back soon, I promise!"

Tanjirou backed away from the door, reaching to shut the shed, but as he moved back, Nezuko took steps forward, waddling towards him like a lost puppy. Tanjirou let out a heavy sigh and stepped back into the shed.

He put his hands on Nezuko's shoulders, and pushed down, forcing her into a sitting position. "Stay here," he said slowly, putting emphasis on the words, "I'll come back for you soon."

Talking still felt a little bit weird, as his tongue wasn't used to running into fangs where his canines should've been, so he had a very slight lisp. This time around, when Tanjirou started to back up, Nezuko stayed put, staring back at him with those blank, empty eyes. Tanjirou shut the door to the shed, sliding the lock closed with a heavy breath.

Tanjirou looked back over his shoulder four times as he walked the few meters back to Saburo's cabin, just to make sure Nezuko wasn't going to break down the door or something in pursuit of him. Luckily, there wasn't even a peep of noise from the shed.

"Okay," Tanjirou said, opening the door, "Can you tell me what in the world is going on now?" Saburo was inside, sitting at the table with a cup of tea. Tanjirou walked in, sitting opposite him, grabbing for one of the tea cups and the teapot, making to pour himself a cup.

"I wouldn't do that yet, if I were you," Saburo said.

Tanjirou froze, the tea kettle held half-tipped above his cup. "Why?"

"I'm not completely sure what the specifics are for demon anatomy. You might get ill if you drink that." Tanjirou frowned, begrudgingly putting down the tea kettle. He was a bit thirsty, but not enough that he was parched. The biggest problem he currently had was his stomach, which was screaming in hunger and causing his mouth to water. Tanjirou gulped, forcing the nagging sensation to the back of his mind.  
"Tell me the story. What happened?" Saburo eventually spoke up, after a solid few moments of silence.

Tanjirou leapt into the story. He had to stop multiple times to compose himself, and he left out the gruesome details. He wanted to think about anything else but the details of his family's death, of how Takeo had…

_Stop it! _Tanjirou slapped himself on the sides of his face a few times to ground himself. _Stop focusing on that. Saburo is trying to help you!_

Tanjirou eventually got through the story, and it was a lot harder than he'd initially anticipated. After Tanjirou fell silent, Saburo sat for a moment, humming, a habit Tanjirou knew the man had just from the few times he'd stayed with him on his way up the mountain.

"I should probably start from the beginning," Saburo started. "Demons have roamed the land for hundreds of years. For a long time, they freely walked the night, killing and eating humans as they pleased."

Tanjirou grimaced, but continued to sit and listen. "I don't know how they multiply, but demons aren't born. They're _made_. Somehow, demons can create other demons from humans that they choose to spare. Something that man did to you must've been what caused it."

Tanjirou remembered the demon who'd broken into his house jamming a finger into his skull, and the skin around the wound (now repaired) tingled. "Yeah, when -"

"Don't tell me, save me the imagery," Saburo snapped, "I'm barely keeping my composure as it is."

Tanjirou's jaw snapped shut and Saburo took a drink from his cup before he continued. "Demons hunted humans like livestock for hundreds of years, all the way up until a few centuries ago when the Demon Slayer Corps was founded. They're an organization of highly trained warriors who slay demons to keep all of us safe."

_I don't count as 'us' anymore,_ Tanjirou realized.

Saburo continued. "Demons can regenerate from their wounds in an instant, don't tire, and even the weakest of demons have superior strength and speed compared to normal humans. The only way that they can be killed is by sunlight, or through the use of a special type of steel that is used to create the swords that demon slayers carry."

Everything was starting to come together. The way that he and Nezuko had been devoid of injuries when they woke up could be attributed to the regenerative capabilities Saburo mentioned. He didn't _feel_ faster or stronger, although he hadn't really had an opportunity to test it out yet. If there was one thing that didn't line up, it was the comment about how demons didn't tire. On the run down the mountain, although it had taken much longer to run out of breath, he'd exhausted himself.

_Then again,_ he thought, _Nezuko wasn't tired at all. Saburo did say that he didn't know a lot about demons, maybe he's wrong about something_.

"What's wrong with Nezuko?" Tanjirou finally asked.

Saburo frowned in response, "I think the question is more along the lines of what's wrong with _you,_ boy."

Tanjirou tilted his head, confused.

Saburo sighed. "I'm no expert on demons, but I do know that when they are created, they're reduced to one step above beasts. They cannot control their urges, and will attack anything and everything that comes near."

Tanjirou shook his head, mind flashing back to his family, and how he'd felt in the sight of his family's corpses. "That can't be right. When I woke up, I felt these...urges, but not enough to make me...to...to _eat_ them!" Tanjirou felt a little insulted that Saburo would even suggest that he'd succumbed to his urges and committed such an atrocious act.

"And your sister?" Saburo yelled, "What of her? Did you have to pull her away from your family? Did you have to stop her from eating them?"

Tanjirou stopped. He'd needed to do _exactly that._ He took a moment to pause and collect his thoughts, or more particularly, his emotions. "Sorry."

Saburo didn't respond with words, just a heavy sigh. Eventually, he continued. "Most demons, from my knowledge, are little more than beasts after they're turned. They lose their sense of self and are overcome by the hunger they face immediately after waking. They can't even form coherent sentences or recall memories, it's like a cloud is plastered over their mind and the only way to recover from it is to consume humans. That is what it means to be turned into a demon."

_Ah,_ Tanjirou thought grimly. _So that's what's wrong with Nezuko._

"I have no idea why you've still kept your sanity, and I can only hope that you aren't driven insane," Saburo continued, "But your sister is too far gone. You may have stopped her from gorging herself on your family, but what's to stop her next time? What if you're not there to hold her back next time?"

"You're wrong!" Tanjirou yelled back, standing in an instant, "Nezuko would never hurt a human! Never, no matter what!"

"And what will you do when she does? Will that guilt and responsibility fall onto you, the one who allowed for her to live in the first place?" Saburo shot back. The corner of his mouth twitched, and Tanjirou wasn't sure if it was out of rage, fear, or both.

Tanjirou scowled, clenching his fists. Long, sharp fingernails dug into his skin, causing a sharp pain Blood dripped onto the floor, leaking out of the instant he relaxed his hands, the cuts in his palm sealed themselves once more. "Nezuko and I are leaving."

"Where are you going to go? You can't go back home, not now."

"I don't know. My family is back home, waiting for me to come give them a proper burial. I'll go back there for now and then figure out what to do from there." Tanjirou responded, walking towards the door. Only when the candlelight licked off of his skin did he realize just how pale it was.

"You can't bury your family," Saburo insisted, "If a demon slayer finds you, it won't matter how much you plead or try to convince them, they'll think you ate them, and you'll be killed in retribution."

Tanjirou bit his lip, "What are the odds that a demon slayer will find us, though?"

"If you go back, almost guaranteed. As far as I know, only strong demons can make other demons, and strong demons are usually being tracked by a slayer. Tanjirou, if you go back, you and your sister will die," Saburo paused. "I'll go bury your family."

Tanjirou didn't turn around, but he gripped the doorframe, and he felt the wood creak under his grasp. If he left, it'd be like abandoning his family, leaving them to someone else instead of giving them the loving burial they all deserved. He couldn't protect them, the least he could do was give them a proper burial.

"I -"

_I couldn't protect my family, but they're not all gone._

"I'm going to protect Nezuko," Tanjirou said, "She's all I have left."

"I'll give your family a proper sendoff. I promise it, on my honor." Saburo said.

"One last question," Tanjirou said, "Is there a way to turn a demon back into a human?"

There was a moment of silence, and Tanjirou heard shuffling from behind him. When Saburo spoke up, his voice was soft. "That, I do not know. If there's anyone out there who does, it's either the demon slayer corps, or the demons themselves. I'm sorry."

Tanjirou nodded silently and reached for the door handle, sliding it to the side and feeling the cold, snowy night air flow into the small building. The scent of fresh snow rushed into Tanjirou's nostrils, a crisp smell with a little bit of a bite to it. Before he stepped out, however, he looked over his shoulder, and smiled. It was a pained smile, and Tanjirou knew that his newly obtained fangs were easily visible, but he still did it. "Thank you for all the help, Saburo-san. It really has helped me."

"Where are you going to go?"

Tanjirou turned around, stepping into the cold night, "I'm going to find a way to turn Nezuko back into a human."

* * *

As Giyuu got closer to the mountain, the snow got thicker, impeding his progress. The thick drifts made dredging through the snow difficult, and despite his total concentration breathing, he could feel the temperature start to get to him, the cool air burning at his lungs and the snow melting through his socks.

Still, he'd lost too much time to the snow already, he wasn't going to lose any more, especially when it meant that someone else might be eaten by the demon that he was sent to kill. So, Giyuu toughed through the unpleasantries, continuing towards the village. Based on his surroundings, he couldn't be too far out.

* * *

Tanjirou didn't run, as he wasn't in any particular rush to get anywhere. He simply held onto Nezuko's wrist, pulling her along with him as he wandered through the snow, walking generally towards the village. He couldn't go diretly into the village, that would just be the recipe for a bad time, but he also didn't really know a lot about the geography outside of the immediate area.

The first priority was to find a place to settle down and set up a base of operations, He and Nezuko would burn up in the sunlight, and so they needed a place to stay during the day. During the night, well, Tanjirou wasn't exactly sure what to do yet.

Saburo had said that only demon slayers or other demons would know anything about how to turn Nezuko (and by extension, himself, although Nezuko was the priority because of the state she'd been reduced to) back into a human. Of the two options, the most logical step was to start with demons.

He had absolutely no way of convincing a demon slayer that he was different from other demons, that he'd never killed a human before. If he tried to tell one that, they'd likely just laugh in his face and kill him anyways. Plus, he didn't really have any idea how to track down a demon slayer down in the first place.

On the other hand, while dealing with demons would be equally difficult in terms of negotiations (due to the insanity), at least he could actually track them down. Demons had a very particular smell, he could smell it faintly on himself and Nezuko. It was like the smell of rotting flesh, a rancid and sour scent. With his keen sense of smell, he could at least sniff them out.

_That stuff can come later! _Tanjirou thought, _Right now, find somewhere to hide before the sun comes out._

As he pulled Nezuko along, she provided a lot of resistance, and a quick look at her showed that she seemed to be falling asleep _as she walked_. Her eyelids looked heavy and half closed, and her legs moved sluggishly.

Eventually, they came across a small cave, a hole in the wall of a cliff. It was tucked away nicely in such a way that it would be difficult to stumble upon, but the cliff it was under was noticeable enough that he could find his way back by seeing it from a distance.

_Perfect,_ Tanjirou thought, ushering Nezuko inside.

* * *

On his way into town, Giyuu came across a small cottage on the mountain. It was old and shoddy at best, with the roof falling apart and the walls awkwardly patched up. Next to the house was a large pile of wood and an unlit furnace.

The snow in the area reflected the light of morning rays that barely pierced through the cloud filled sky. It was early morning, less than an hour after sunrise, but the cloud cover was sufficient enough that a demon would most likely be okay for a few more hours until the sun got brighter and hotter in the afternoon, so Giyuu was still on his guard.

Something struck Giyuu as off about the entire situation, particularly the eerie silence. The most noticeable fact, however, was the open door. People didn't just open doors like that in the middle of winter, especially when it was snowing outside. Giyuu felt his chest tighten as he went to get a closer look.

The sight of the inside of the building would be enough to cause any sane person to become sick; the only reason Giyuu kept his stomach contents was because he'd seen similar carnage many times before.

Strewn across the inside of the small home were dismembered and torn apart bodies of a family. The severity of the carnage made it obvious that whoever (or whatever) had done this thought of humans like livestock, disrespecting and dismembering the bodies and not even caring to bury them properly. Between that and the missing body parts and chunks of flesh made one thing clear: this was a demon attack. He knew it wasn't a bear or something of that sort, because cases of animals attacking humans were extremely rare, and even when one did happen, the scene leftover was far different.

Giyuu could hear his heart pounding in his ears as the blood circulated through his body, propelled through his veins faster than a normal person's by his breath style.

_I was too slow, _he thought. _If I'd been here just a day earlier, I could've stopped this._

Another family killed, another set of lives ruined by demons. Giyuu pounded his fist against the doorframe, biting his lip to keep his emotions in check.

_The bodies are fresh, which means the demon can't be too far away,_ Giyuu thought, deciding to focus on the task at hand. _It's snowy outside, follow the footsteps._

This family didn't match the demographic of the reported missing persons from the nearby village, which meant one of two things: the demon in the village had gotten desperate or especially hungry and started to attack at random, or there was _another_ demon in the area. Both were equally worrying prospects.

Giyuu was about to turn to attempt to find footprints before the snow filled in the gaps when her heard the crunching sound of snow from behind him.

Giyuu whipped around, his hand flying to the sword at his hip reflexively. About fifteen meters away, emerging from the forest was a man, standing with a shovel in hand. He _looked_ human, but Giyuu didn't take his hand off of his sword hilt.

"You're a demon slayer, aren't you?" The man said. Giyuu met his eyes and didn't answer.

Eventually, the man started walking forwards, the shovel resting on his shoulder as he walked. "The demon that did this is long gone by now."

As the man got closer, Giyuu let himself relax just a little. He could see no notable demonic features, although that didn't completely rule out the possibility that he was concealing that somehow, possibly through a blood demon art.

"Did you see it?"

The man simply shook his head. "It was gone before I even learned it was there."

"And how did you learn it was there?" Giyuu shot back immediately.

When he heard the question, the man twitched for a second, coming to a stop awkwardly. Giyuu watched as his demeanor tensed. After a moment, he looked up, but Giyuu could see his knuckles were white where he was gripping his shovel. Finally, he spoke. "This family has sold myself and the rest of the nearby village charcoal for years. I came up early this morning, just after sunrise, to get some from them and I found this. My wife and children were taken from me by a demon years ago, I know what a demon attack looks like. I figured I'd give them a proper burial."

Giyuu wasn't very good with reading people. In fact, some would say he was atrocious at it, completely clueless when it came to social situations. Even then, he was able to tell when somebody was lying so obviously. There was something the man was keeping from him.

Before Giyuu could protest, however, the man started to move towards the side of the house, shovel in hand. He peered over his shoulder, meeting Giyuu's eyes. "I know you've got a demon to catch, demon slayer-san, but the one that killed this family is long gone. I'm not as young as I used to be, and I could use some help digging. Everyone deserves a proper burial."

Giyuu wanted to tell the man no, to just leave him to his business and head off to the nearby village and seek out the demon hiding in the shadows. Yet, when he peered into the home, he didn't see the corpses of of a family he didn't know, he saw the corpses of his sister, Sabito, and everybody else close to him that he couldn't protect. Subconsciously, he grabbed at part of his haori, the pattern taken from Sabito's own, and Giyuu felt his heart tense.

He couldn't protect this family, but the least he could do was send them off properly.

_Besides, the demon in town is going to be hiding until night, _he thought.

Giyuu stepped after the man. "Where can I find a shovel?"

The man looked over his shoulder again and smiled. "There may be a spare one in their shed."

Giyuu nodded and jogged around the house.

* * *

_Full disclosure: I did not expect this fic to get feedback that it did. I wrote the first chapter in less than a week and didn't have many plans for what I'd do after that, since I was honestly expecting the idea to flop. But then this fic became the one with the single most feedback on an opening chapter that I've ever gotten. 3 times the amount of kudos from chapter 1 as my biggest fic got on its best chapter, and taking the #5 most followed spot on blew me away._

_So, after the explosion of popularity this got, I decided to double down and continue, and over the last few weeks I've been hardcore planning. I've got an outline for the next 5 chapters at LEAST, probably more than that if I take my time. We're in it for the long haul here, so I hope you all stick with me. Sorry for taking so long to update, I was busy planning and writing not only this fic, but 2 other fics, one unpublished and the other being my main bnha fic._

_Long author's note over. See you in the next one!_


	3. Chapter 3: Confrontation

**Chapter 3: Confrontation**

* * *

_Question: Why did this take so long to update?  
Answer: yes._

* * *

Tanjirou watched from inside the cave as the snowfall relented, giving way to a bright and harsh late-morning sunny sky. Of course, the sunlight, a thing that would normally be celebrated during a snowy winter such as this one, was the very thing trapping Tanjirou within the cave.

Even outside of the word of advice from old man Saburo to not go out in the sunlight, something deep insight of Tanjirou's gut told him that going out in that sunlight would be a _bad_ idea so long as he valued his life. It was like an instinct, just as his body's urge to eat his family had been, though he chose to listen to this one.

There was still one more thing keeping Tanjirou confined inside of this tiny cave. Not long after they'd made it to their temporary safe haven, Nezuko had curled up in the corner of the confined space and _gone to sleep_. Completely out, not making so much as a peep of noise outside of the rhythmic sound of her breathing.

He couldn't particularly blame her, they'd had one _hell_ of a last few hours, but at the same time, things didn't quite line up. On one hand, Saburo had mentioned that demons didn't fatigue, so unless Nezuko was sleeping for the sake of it and not for any actual functional purpose, then either Nezuko was sleeping for some other reason, Saburo was wrong, or both.

On the other hand, Tanjirou could kind of understand why Nezuko was tired. He personally was exhausted, but in a different way than the type of tired that made you want to curl up and go to sleep. For him, it was more like his muscles were sore and moving around wasn't all that pleasant. Even then, he didn't feel drowsy whatsoever, definitely not the kind of tired that he needed to sleep off, more of fatigue, like he'd run himself out of energy.

_So do demons actually still fatigue?_ Tanjirou thought, _was Saburo wrong about that? _

Tanjirou massaged his arm, rolling knots out of his skin. He still had to be careful, as he wasn't used to the claws and he nicked himself more than a couple of times, but it felt good to massage his body. It wasn't like he had anything better to do, either. He _could_ follow in Nezuko's footsteps and try to sleep, but he had a feeling that he'd be completely unable to fall asleep. Besides, someone needed to keep watch.

Tanjirou wasted away the day by boredly pacing around the tiny cave that he'd put them up in and getting lost in his own thoughts. He almost definitely overthought every problem that he was facing at the moment and what he had to do next, and he certainly worried too much about just about everything.

2 laps around the cave, check on Nezuko and make sure she's doing okay, 2 more laps around the cave, kick around a few of the pebbles in the corner for a bit, think more about what he had to do next, go check on Nezuko again, another 2 laps, get as close to the opening of the cave as he dared and watch the snow pile up for a while, repeat. It went on and on and on, to the point that Tanjirou found himself falling into mind-numbing monotony.

* * *

By splitting the work between Giyuu and the old man, they were able to get the bodies buried by the time the sun was directly overhead. If not for Giyuu's years in the corps, he doubted that he'd have been able to stomach the task of moving the family's corpses into their respective graves, but at this point he was almost numb to it. Just almost. After they were all covered, the old man made simple gravestones from the spare firewood and charcoal, scribbling the names of each family member before embedding the plank into the soil.

Giyuu himself felt very...disconnected throughout the entire ordeal. He didn't know who these people were, what they were like, or even anything about them at all. All Giyuu knew of these people were their lifeless faces and what the old man told him. Even then, there was still a sort of emotional connection there. These were the people that Giyuu was supposed to be protecting, and he failed them. He owed them this, at the very least.

After everything, they deposited their shovels on the side of the shack and then simply shut the door.

"Thank you for your help, demon hunter," the old man said, bowing slightly. "You helped me give this family the burial they deserved."

Giyuu didn't respond. Instead, he pursed his lips and tightened his grip on his sword hilt, a bad habit of his whenever he was nervous or distraught. When he finally spoke, it wasn't quite what he'd initially anticipated on saying. "The demon that did this. Where is it?"

The old man looked taken aback for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure and shook his head softly, a frown tugging at the corners of his lips. "I've got no idea, I'm sorry."

A pause for a moment, then the sound of crunching snow as the old man turned and started walking away from the shack, back in the direction that he had come from initially. "Demon slayer-san, would you care for lunch and some tea? I live not too far from the village that I believe you may be headed to."

"How do you know I am a demon slayer?" Giyuu finally asked the question that had been nagging at the back of his mind. After all the times he'd been laughed at, mocked, or called a liar by the general public when he informed them of his profession, it was off putting to have someone immediately recognize and accept you, which was magnified by the level of respect the man had shown thus far.

After the words escaped Giyuu's lips, the man stopped, looking back slightly, just hardly speaking over his shoulder. "My wife and daughters were killed by a demon. I only survived because of a demon hunter's help. Any person that carries one of those blades is a person I owe my life to," and then he turned and kept walking.

Giyuu silently followed, not doing so much as opening his mouth the entire way to the man's home.

* * *

Giyuu sat in silence at the old man's table at his home. Well, it was less of a home and more of a glorified shack, but the man lived alone so it was understandable. As Giyuu watched him move around the room, making tea and what looked like a simple egg, rice, and pork breakfast, Giyuu found himself becoming more and more impatient.

In the back of his head, he knew that he wasn't particularly missing anything. He'd been too slow on his arrival, so the demon that had killed the family he'd just buried was long gone, almost untrackable due to the snow covering its tracks, but at the same time he arrived at just the wrong time to hunt down the demon he was actually assigned to kill, for it would be hiding until nightfall.

Even then, part of his mind kept nagging at him that he had some place to be, that he was wasting valuable time by accepting the old man's kind offer to feed and refresh him. There was one, singular thing that kept Giyuu at the table instead of outright leaving: he was still not completely sure if the old man was telling him the whole story, and he had a creeping suspicion that he was hiding something.

The old man turned around, carrying two steaming cups of tea. He set them down on the table, one in front of Giyuu and the other in front of the empty spot, and then turned around and retrieved two platters from the counter, doing the same thing he'd done with the mugs. Finally, the man took his seat across from Giyuu.

"Itadakimasu," Giyuu bowed his head and muttered the customary phrase softly, grabbing the chopsticks from the table The old man echoed the phrase and did the same. Giyuu prefered to eat in silence, so he tore through the meal quickly, not even looking up from the bowl to initiate conversation. Giyuu was halfway through his food when the old man cleared his throat, breaking the tense silence.

"I don't believe we ever introduced ourselves, Demon Slayer-san."

Giyuu looked up from his bowl, meeting the man's eyes. He thought about what the man said and what he could've meant for what must've been a second too long, as the man shifted a little and bowed slightly.

"My name is Saburo, nice to meet you."

Only once Saburo introduced himself did Giyuu realize that the man wasn't just observing the fact that they hadn't done introductions, but in fact was trying to imply that he wished to do said introductions.

"Oh," Giyuu said, regaining a little composure and sitting up. He tilted his head, bowl and chopsticks in hand. "My name is Tomioka Giyuu."

Saburo bowed even deeper. "It is nice to meet you, Tomioka-san."

_He already said it's nice to meet me, why'd he say it again,_ the thought ran through Giyuu's head absentmindedly. He shook his head, trying to force himself to think straight. He still had a sneaking suspicion that Saburo was hiding something, and if it would help with slaying demons and saving lives, then he'd get it out of him.

"It's nice to meet you as well," Giyuu said, turning his attention back to his bowl. This time, instead of staring blankly at the dish, he ate while eyeing the place, observing the state of the shack and looking for anything that might be hiding some sort of truth. Giyuu may be known for his social obliviousness, but when it came to his job and things that mattered, he liked to think that he could be observant.

The inside of the shack wasn't exactly neat, but it was far from in disarray. Various items and objects were strewn about the floors, counters, and (although limited) furniture, but none of it looked like it didn't _belong_, even if it was messy. There was, however, one thing that Giyuu's eye caught: an oil stain on the floor just in front of the door, like from if a lantern were dropped.

When Giyuu finally finished his breakfast, an awfully large bowl, he set it down in front of him on the table, pushing it forwards towards the center. "Saburo-san, if you would tell me the story again, from the beginning."

Saburo, who still hadn't finished his bowl, looked up and gave Giyuu an odd look. "It may help with tracking down the demon that did this." he appended.

Saburo sighed and took one last bite from his bowl, before setting it down on the table right next to Giyuu's empty one and taking a long drink from his mug. With a sigh, he leaned back, meeting Giyuu's eyes. "Kamado. That's the name of the family we just buried."

* * *

One moment, Tanjirou had been sitting near the edge of the cave, silently watching the snow accumulate in the morning sunlight. What felt like the next moment, the snow had piled up a solid few centimeters and even completely stopped, the setting sun creating a shadow from the cliff that they were holed up in, with a combination of reds, oranges, and yellows peeking through the trees.

Sunsets were one of the most soothing things to watch, from the serene beauty of the star falling behind the mountains to the stunning silence of nighttime that followed. The only thing that were better than sunsets were sunrises.

Tanjirou's chest tightened up a little when he realized he'd never be able to see either of them again.

_I won't be able to see them unless I get out there and find a cure for me and Nezuko._ Tanjirou thought, shunning away the pessimistic thoughts. He stood from the tiny stone that he'd been using as a stool for who-knows-how-many hours, walking across the cave to where Nezuko laid on the ground, still sleeping.

"Nezuko," Tanjirou said, soft enough to be heard but not loud enough to be startling, "Nezuko, you've gotta wake up. We need to get going."

Nezuko did not wake. In fact, she didn't even stir. Tanjirou reached over and lightly shook her shoulder, causing her upper body to wiggle limply. When she _still_ didn't wake, Tanjirou began to worry.

_Is she okay? She's been sleeping all day._ Tanjirou's breathing quickened and he doubled his effort, shaking her a little harder and speaking at a normal volume. "Nezuko, we need to leave. We need to go into town before we leave."

_Leave to where?_ The back of Tanjirou's mind echoed, _just where do you plan on going?_ He ignored the voice when Nezuko didn't even make any sign of waking up.

Beginning to panic, Tanjirou leaned over and checked her pulse and breathing. She was breathing just fine, and her pulse was there, if a bit slow. _So why is she still unconscious?_

Tanjirou remembered what Saburo had said about demons not tiring and all of the exceptions that had come up since then. He'd tired his muscles on the flight down the mountainside, his muscles were still sore, and Nezuko was sleeping. None of that lined up with the sentiment that "demons don't tire".

Tanjirou continued to try to wake Nezuko for another few minutes, to no avail. Part of him was panicking. Actually, more than part, most of him was panicking. Nezuko wasn't waking up, they needed to get on the road (since they could only travel at night and needed to put as much distance between them and his home as they could), and most importantly, _Nezuko wasn't waking up._

Tanjirou forced himself to take deep breaths in an attempt to calm his nerves. _Focus,_ he told himself, _what's the best thing to do here?_

Well, first of all, they needed to get moving, but to get moving he either needed to get Nezuko to wake up or he needed to carry her. Carrying her would most likely be difficult, even if his strength was augmented thanks to demonism like Saburo claimed. If it wasn't an issue of strength, it would be an issue of the awkwardness to carry her that would slow him down.

_Okay, if Nezuko being asleep is the problem here, then what's the best solution?_

Obviously, waking her by hand wasn't going to work. So, the first thing that came to mind was to get some sort of help waking her. Obviously he couldn't bring a doctor, not only would that totally give away her appearance and state, but it would be suspicious as all hell if a doctor had to come out to a cave in the middle of nowhere and not his house.

If he couldn't bring a doctor out to check on Nezuko, he'd just have to do the next best thing. There was a small apothecary down in town that sold various herbs and helpful medicines, including things like smelling salts. Of course, they also sold stuff like antiseptic, herbal painkillers, and herbal contraceptives ( he wasn't completely sure if the latter two even worked) but those would not be of any use to him. Either way, Tanjirou had done his fair share of favors for the little woman that ran the shop, so he was sure she wouldn't mind him showing up on her doorstep right after sunfall.

"Alright!" Tanjirou hollered, his hal-shout echoing off the cave walls as he stood up abruptly, new vision and plan finally in the back of his mind.

There were still two major holes in his plan. First off, as he clenched his fist he was reminded of the claws that adorned the tips of his fingertips, and a quick run of his tongue along the inside of his mouth made him think about the fangs. He'd need to cover both if he was going to be able to reasonably head into town and not give them a heart attack like he had to Old Man Saburo. The second problem, of course, was his strong aversion to leaving Nezuko in the cave alone, even if he was only going to be gone for a few hours so long as everything went well.

_What if a demon slayer comes around and finds her while I'm gone? What if something happens to me and I don't come back at all?_ That voice from earlier echoed in the back of his head once more.

Tanjirou shook his head violently. "I need to focus! If I don't go, then she might not wake up at all, and if a demon slayer shows up while I'm here we'll both die anyway." Talking out loud helped Tanjirou focus on what mattered sometimes.

Peering out of the cave showed that the sun had completely set, enveloping the land in darkness. _No more time to waste._

Tanjirou walked over and placed one hand on Nezuko's own, giving it a soft squeeze before standing up and walking towards the exit of the cave.  
"I'll be back soon."

* * *

The sun had nearly fallen behind the mountains by the time Saburo finished his story. This time, he'd given a much more detailed rundown of the situation, but Giyuu still failed to find inconsistencies in the story. Either Giyuu's instincts were wrong, or Saburo was hiding something, but was _very _good at covering it up. He was leaning towards the former, mostly due to the fact that as Saburo went on, the more Giyuu felt like he didn't have anything to hide in the first place.

There were still a couple things that felt odd, like how the family, the Kamado family, only had a mother and three children (apparently the father passed away a few years ago) yet still made a living off of selling charcoal, which was something that took a lot of manual labor.

_That's probably part of the reason they looked so poor,_ Giyuu thought, remembering the run-down, patched-up shack that they'd lived in.

Giyuu was running out of time to sit around and nitpick for details, anyways. The sun was setting, meaning it would soon be dark enough for the demon he was after to become active, and he was still a short run from the town.

"Thank you for informing me." Giyuu stood and walked towards the door.

He was surprised when he felt a tug on his sleeve. He looked back to see Saburo with his hands wrapped around Giyuu's own, an odd look on his face. "Please, Tomioka-san. It may be too much for me to ask, but...please find the demon that did that to this family. They didn't deserve this."

Giyuu paused for a moment.

Some called him socially inept. Others said that he had no subtlety. He missed cues and many things went over his head if they weren't explicitly stated. Despite all that, when moments like this one arrived, when people were looking to him as a source of ease, he never missed them; he knew what he needed to say.

"I'll track that demon down and make it pay."

Saburo didn't smile, but he did nod and release Giyuu's hand, which was good enough. Giyuu nodded to him and headed for the entrance, sliding open the door to reveal soft orange light glistening off of the snow. Without another word, Giyuu took off down the trail, headed towards the nearest town.

As he left, he looked back to see Saburo shut the door, he noticed something a little odd.

The door to Saburo's shack that sat right next to his home was standing, wide open.

Giyuu shook away any thoughts that attempted to make their way to the front of his mind. The door to a shack didn't matter right now, he had a demon to catch, in fact, if the promise he made to Saburo was worth anything, he had _two_ demons to catch.

* * *

The cold winter air bit at Tanjirou's lungs with every inhale. He sped down the mountainside, kicking up snow behind him as he dredged through it. Despite the exertion shoving through snow usually took, Tanjirou found himself tiring very slowly, though he did feel that familiar difficulty of breath creeping up on him.

_I need to cover my hands and face,_ Tanjirou thought as he ran. He'd left basically everything he owned at his home, outside of his haori and the clothes on his back, and if the Saburo's words were anything to go by, heading back to his home would be a bad idea. _Going back and getting gloves and a scarf are out of the picture, then._

He knew that there was a small butcher in the outskirts of the village, and odds are they'd at least have some cloth masks that he could "borrow" to cover his face; he loathed to steal from the villagers, especially when he knew them all so personally, but it wasn't like he had much of a choice. If the butcher had a set of gloves that he could use as well, that would be ideal.

With his plan in mind, Tanjirou continued his trek down the mountainside, and as he got further from the peak, the snow became thinner. _Most of it must have fallen on the mountain,_ he thought, focusing on the feel of his feet pounding against the ground and hoping that he was going the right way.

The village was a pretty decent distance away from Tanjirou's home. He'd made the trip between the two locations enough times to know that much. Usually an entire day had to be set aside to sell charcoal in town, as even the fastest of days required a few hours of commuting each way.

As such, Tanjirou was surprised when he saw the outline of houses in the distance after a mere hour or so of travel. Sure, he'd started off closer to begin with, the cave he hid Nezuko and himself in wasn't far from Saburo's home which was about halfway between his family's home and the village, but it was still surprised by how quick he arrived at his destination.

_I guess Saburo was right,_ Tanjirou thought, _Demons really are faster and stronger. _

Tanjirou slowed to a creeping walk, attempting to catch his breath. Demons may be more resilient, but he'd learned the hard way that he still tired, especially after an hour straight of running.

Tanjirou peered through the trees at the village, eyes open for any activity. He saw lights emanating from the windows of some of the homes, but the majority of the buildings were dark inside, their residents having gone to sleep.

_The butcher is in the south-east corner of the village,_ Tanjirou thought, mentally reorienting himself. He was currently on the north-east corner, which luckily meant he wouldn't need to go too far to get to his destination.

Tanjirou carefully made his way along the edge of the village, using his keen sense of smell to guide his way. It was late and most people were asleep in their homes, but that didn't mean that the streets were desolate. There were still some people, particularly men, up and about. Some were smoking on their doorsteps and others were walking home, the smell of alcohol fresh on their breath.

He wasn't sure if it was that his sense of smell had been augmented even further by his transformation or if it was just a result of the air being particularly still tonight, but either way, Tanjirou found it exceptionally easy to pinpoint other people with his nose. He could smell a drunkard stumbling home before they even passed by the alleyway he was sneaking through or even sniff out the wafting scent of pipe smoke from a man on his front porch half a block away. Outside of those obvious tells, the normal scents associated with certain individuals were seemingly more potent.

Yagi-san's bold, crisp scent of ozone filled his nose before Tanjrou even knew the man was around the corner and Shimura-san's soft, flowery scent that was difficult to identify under ideal conditions completely filled his nostrils when she passed by.

Either way, the crispness of his sense of smell allowed Tanjirou to stick in the shadows, getting to the other corner of the village without being seen. That was, of course, a good thing; the last thing he needed was another person seeing him and reacting like Old Man Saburo had at first.

Tanjirou was incredibly relieved to see that the lights inside the butcher's family's home were off, not a lick of candlelight present. Of course, he still needed to tread carefully and avoid being seen, but at least he'd be able to snoop around the slaughterhouse undisturbed.

_If I remember correctly,_ Tanjirou turned, _the slaughterhouse is kept separately from the home._ He crept around the building, eyes darting around for any signs of movement as he tiptoed through the snow.

As he finally rounded the corner to the back of the home where the slaughterhouse sat (the building was hardly more than a shed), one thing started to become very, _very_ apparent.

It was safe to say that, in general, slaughterhouses and butchers shops didn't exactly smell the greatest. Meat, and by extension, animal blood, has a tendency to smell pungent as it degrades, and if not properly cleaned out regularly, that can make slaughterhouses smell like manure. Luckily, this slaughterhouse was well maintained and didn't have a foul odor to it, but the scent it _did_ produce was completely overwhelming.

The moment the scent of animal tissue hit Tanjirou's nose, he felt the hunger that he'd spent the last half a day suppressing surge once again, and his mouth began to water. This time, however, it felt a little bit different in nature. Where the hunger he'd felt when he first transformed into a demon had urged him to do unspeakable things, this one was more refined. It wasn't a primal urge like the one that told him to eat the bodies of his family, more of a bodily response that told him he needed to eat something to fill his stomach.

Most importantly, the feeling of hunger didn't make his stomach churn with disgust at the idea of satiating it. It wasn't telling him to eat humans (which was so morally appalling that the mere thought of doing so made Tanjirou's stomach churn), it was just telling him to eat whatever was sitting in that slaughterhouse. Even still, Tanjirou still wasn't sure if he liked how strong that feeling was, to the point that it was almost overwhelming.

He crept his way into the small shack, mouth snapped shut to prevent himself from drooling like a rabid animal. On the inside hung a few different animals. About half of a cow and two pigs, to be exact. Something deep inside of Tanjirou urged him to just take a bite, to eat the dead animals raw.

Two things held him back. First of all, he didn't want to degrade himself like that, he may be a demon but he'd kept his senses, damn it! Secondly, he remembered Saburo's warning when he'd attempted to drink some tea. _Demons have different bodies and stomachs, I may hurt myself if I eat human food._

He patted his stomach, forcing himself to swallow the excess saliva collecting in his mouth. _Maybe soon,_ he thought, as if he were talking to his own body.

Tanjirou shook his head to clear his thoughts and bring his mind back to the task at hand. He stood, looking around the room for some sort of way to cover his face.

The reason that he'd been so confident about the slaughterhouse was that it was extremely common in Japan to wear face masks when working with any type of food that would be either given or sold to others. It was just etiquette, just in case the handler was ill. Of course, he was banking on the hope that the butcher kept the masks out in the slaughterhouse, or even used one at all.

Tanjirou's prayers were answered when he saw a small stack of cloth masks on a small desk just inside the door. Tanjirou let out a breath of relief. Taking one off the top and fashioning it over his mouth. He tested the straps that went over his ears a couple times to ensure that it was staying on.

"Alright!" Tanjirou said, letting himself revel in the success for a moment. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any gloves in the shack, which was a little problematic, but he figured that if he was careful and kept his hands in his pockets, he may be able to get away with it.

Fairly confident in his cover-up (still not confident enough to go out into the middle of the street, but at least, if he was seen, it wouldn't be the end of the world anymore), Tanjioru turned to leave the slaughterhouse and head over to the apothecary's shop on the other side of the village.

As soon as he got out of the dark building, he immediately noticed something was off. Not only was there light emanating from the main road that the village sat on, _not only_ did the air feel heavier, in a way, but there was a scent on the air.

Actually, there were two scents. One was the hunger-inducing, stomach turning scent of human blood.

The other, well, the other was the rotting, putrid and sour smell of a Demon.

Abandoning all caution, Tanjirou took off at a sprint in the direction of the smell.

* * *

The biggest problem with finding demons that hunted from the shadows was actually getting a lead. Usually, once you found a starting point, it wasn't hard to follow the trail to its source; most demons weren't exactly the best at being cautious and covering their tracks, and if they were, then that was a good sign that you're dealing with a particularly strong and smart one.

Giyuu wandered the streets of the small village at the base of the mountain for about an hour after sundown before he got his first lead. Normally, a lead would be a clue from a local, or possibly even traces of one of the demon's victims.

In this case, however, it was a lot more profound. A man's voice yelled out in what could only be described as terror. Thanks to the dead silence of night, it wasn't hard to pinpoint the direction if came from.

The demon slayer quickly whipped around, kicking off the ground to propel himself onto the roof of one of the nearby buildings.

_It sounded like it came from the main road,_ Giyuu realized. He changed his course by hopping off of the roof he was on onto the building adjacent. The screaming and yelling had ceased and Giyuu feared the man who called out had been silenced by force.

_The demon targets married men._ Giyuu remembered his briefing. _It has some sort of reason to target that demographic._

When Giyuu finally saw the demon, his stomach sank. In the middle of the main road, attempting to drag a struggling man away into an alley, was the demon. If the pale skin wasn't enough to recognize it, the claws adorning his hands was.

The demon looked like he was in his mid-twenties. At least, that's how old his body looked. With demons you could never tell how old they _actually_ were, since they tended to keep the appearance and physique they had when they were turned.

_What it looks like doesn't matter, damn it!_ Giyuu told himself. Due to the flailing and struggling between the demon and the man, Giyuu wouldn't safely go in for a killing blow on the beast without risking hurting the villager.

So, instead, Giyuu dropped to the ground on the road just a few meters away from the demon. "Stop."

The demon froze, but the villagers continued to flail. "Please, help me! I don't know what -"

The demon hissed and he put his claws right on the villager's neck, who finally froze. _I'm probably faster, I could take his head off before he kills the prisoner._ He considered it, but ultimately decided that it was too much of a risk. He had to get the demon away or distracted, even if just for a moment.

"What do _you_ want," the demon sneered, eyes boring into Giyuu.

"Let go of him."

The demon met his eyes, then hissed again. "Why should I? He took _everything_ from me."

"I don't even know who you ar-" the captive started.

"Quiet!" the demon screamed, drawing blood as his nails punctured the man's skin. Now that he was closer, Giyuu could see that the villager was on the older side, most likely in his mid-forties, _definitely_ old enough to be married.

"All of you are the same!" the demon started, "All I ever was was nice to all those girls! I got them flowers, I would've loved them all and treated them right, if any of them gave me a chance!"

_What is this thing even saying?_

"But instead, they all get with these assholes! They don't treat them right! They needed to be treated like princesses, but none of you can do that for them! But they give them the chance, and not me! I'm such a nice guy, once you get to know me!" the demon continued to rave, giving off even a rabid air to him.

"Is that why you are killing all the married men in the village?" Giyuu asked, attempting to bide time and get the demon away from his prey.

"Yes!" the demon waved his arm that wasn't holding the villager around, "I'll kill them all! Get rid of all the men in the village so they don't have a _choice_ but to give me a shot!"

Giyuu wanted to vomit in his mouth a little. Sure, Giyuu didn't exactly understand women (or people in general) but this demon was giving him such creepy vibes. If he'd been like this - albeit without the 'kill all the men in the village' part - before he became a demon, well, let's just say that Giyuu was surprised such a person existed.

Not that that mattered at the moment, though. There was an innocent person's life in danger, which meant that Giyuu needed to focus on his job. He carefully, discreetly reached for his blade, resting one hand on the hilt.

"Step away from the man," Giyuu warned.

"Why? Why should I? A guy like him, who takes the women away and treats them like garbage? Why should I let a guy like him keep all of the girls from guys like me?"

Giyuu noticed the lights inside of the homes around him start to turn on as a crowd started to gather along the sides of the street. If this demon somehow slipped through his grip...well, it was safe to say that not everyone would come out unharmed.

"Damn it all!" The demon screamed, seemingly noticing the crowd as well. He looked around the area, his grip still strong on his hostage's throat. Then, something seemed to dawn on his face, a look of realization.

"I'll spare this man!" the demon yelled, "I'll spare him and let him crawl back home to his whore of a wife if one of the women around here sleeps with me! If any of you can find it to give a nice guy like me a chance, I'll stop!"

An array of whispers came to life around the area. It wasn't surprising to see that, of the women that _had_ come out to see the commotion, most went back inside, locking their doors, or at least started to look uneasy.

"Anybody?"

The demon was met with silence again. Giyuu kept his grip on his sword tight, ready to spring into action as soon as an opportunity presented itself. The demon's eyes bounced around, and as the seconds went on, no women coming forward, he only seem to become more and more agitated.

"Ah, that's how it is, then." was there...resignation in his voice? "I see now how rotten you all are. Every single one of you. If that's how you want it, then so be it!"

One moment the demon had his hand on the villager's neck, and the next, blood exploded from the man's neck, the demon having _ripped out his throat_.

"No!" Giyuu screamed out, drawing his blade in an instant. He ran in, preparing a move. "Breath of water, first form: water surface sla- "

Giyuu's attack was interrupted as the demon threw the now lifeless body of his captive at him. Giyuu had to change his form and drive his blade towards the ground in order to avoid slicing (and therefore mutilating) the corpse.

_Damn it, move!_ Giyuu told himself, shrugging the body of the man off and breaking into a run. The demon had used the moment of distraction to make a run for the nearest group of onlookers, a small family of a husband, wife, and daughter. They tried to back up and get back into their home, but the demon was too quick.

Giyuu knew he wouldn't get there in time. The beast was already reaching a clawed arm out towards the wife, a feral, ravenous look in his eyes. Even if Giyuu used a move like striking tide to close the distance, he wouldn't be able to chop off the demon's head before he injured the woman.

_Another family I failed, another set of lives ruined by a demon I couldn't stop,_ Giyuu thought, even as he fell into Breath of Water's fourth form. _I'm sorry_.

Just as the demon was about to grab the woman, something happened. Something that Giyuu did not think he'd see ever in his demon slaying career.

Something passed Giyuu as a blur of movement. One moment, the demon was about to kill an innocent woman, and before Giyuu would so much as blink there was another person there.

"Get away from them!" a boy's voice screamed with rage. He was wearing a black and green checkered haori with dark-burgundy hair tied in a ponytail behind his head. With one quick punch, the demon's head flew from his shoulders, launched across the courtyard by the force of the hit where it slammed against the exterior of a building.

Then, the boy who did what Giyuu himself had failed to do turned his head, long hair no longer obscuring his view. Giyuu watched as the mask that had been covering his face fell off, exposing sharp teeth, bangs bared as he shouted. On the ends of his hands, where his fingernails ought to have been, were sharp claws. The most notable feature, however, was his eyes. The boy's irises seemed like they were _alive,_ various hues of yellow, orange, and red flickering inside of them like a fire.

It was a demon.

The words that left the boy's mouth next were the absolute last thing Giyuu thought he'd ever hear from a demon. "I won't let you hurt anybody!"


	4. Chapter 4: Encounter

**Chapter 4: Encounter**

* * *

The moment the demon's head flew from its shoulders, launched across the road by an inhumanly strong punch, the rest of the street erupted into chaos. Bystanders that had been frozen in shock at the first demon's casual killing shook themselves back to reality, letting out a chorus of screams as they scrambled back into their respective homes, the combined sounds of doors slamming shut reverberating like the music of a percussion ensemble.

Giyuu himself took a moment to even process what he'd just seen. Demons fighting other demons wasn't uncommon; territory disputes were quite frequent. Still, something struck Giyuu as off about the boy, mostly about what he'd said as he detached the other demon's head from his shoulders.

_Focus on protecting the villagers,_ Giyuu told himself.

Giyuu kicked off the ground hard, drawing his blade with one smooth movement. He connected the action of drawing his blade with a fluid swing, slicing through the now-headless body of the first demon, cleaving through the spine easily and causing the body to start to disintegrate. He was about to swing again, this time at the second demon's throat, but something stopped him.

The other demon had turned his attention to Giyuu, having taken on a defensive stance a few meters away and holding one hand out to his side, outstretched in front of the family that the first demon had nearly killed. "Get back inside! It's dangerous out here!" he called over his shoulder. His other hand was held in front of him, almost like an invisible barrier between himself and Giyuu.

Giyuu hesitated, letting his sword come to rest by his side, held out just slightly, a silent warning that he was ready to attack at the first sign of hostility. The demon met his eyes, his animated, fiery pupils boring into Giyuu as the remaining villagers fled from the streets, leaving the two alone under the faint luminescence of the moon.

Giyuu's gaze flickered over to the wall that the demon's head had splattered against, and to his relief, he saw no movement. Giyuu knew that the demon wasn't dead, without special help, demons could not kill other demons, but it seemed to be incapacitated for the time being, at least until he regenerated. The last thing he needed was to have_ two_ demons to keep track of at once.

He turned his attention back to the boy, who hadn't moved much and was just glancing around the street rapidly. Giyuu watched as the demon's eyes paused on his blade, before glancing down to the demon's body burning away into dust. When he looked back up, he had a panicked look on his face.

"You're a demon slayer, aren't you?" he said, his voice wet with fear.

"Yes." Giyuu replied flatly. He clenched his sword grip even tighter.

The boy's hands started to tremble, and to Giyuu's surprise, he took a step back. In response, Giyuu took a step forward, as if to say 'you're not running away'. They stayed like that for what felt like an eternity, Giyuu ready to strike down the demon whilst the demon looked around in fear, eyes darting around the empty street. A glance over to the other end of the street showed that the first demon still had not regenerated.

Now that Giyuu got a better look at the demon, he wasn't quite sure what to make of the boy. His long maroon hair was tied back in a ponytail and an oddly shaped scar sat on his forehead, shaped almost like a flame. It was like a demon's marking, one of the ones that appeared on demons while they used their blood demon art, but...different in a way. Of course, there was still the fiery, slitted eyes, fangs, and claws, advertising his nature as a demon. Yet, even outside of that, something struck Giyuu as...off about this demon. It wasn't just the line about protecting the villagers or the calculated motion, but just the demeanor of the boy was something unlike Giyuu had ever seen from a demon.

Usually, demons fell into two categories. The first was still too weak to develop a personality and acted primal, like an unchained beast. They didn't show any complex emotions or any evidence of deep thought, usually just lashing out when they felt threatened or saw a human they thought they could kill. The other type was the more dangerous type: demons who had eaten enough humans to regain a normal level of cognitive thought, albeit a twisted, insane one. These demons were the same demons that were strong enough to develop blood demon arts and come up with more complex battle plans than "run at the enemy and try to eat them".

This boy, however, seemed very _human._ He was surely not the first type of demon, he'd shown the ability to think logically and talk at the very least. He couldn't be that strong, though. Some demons had an air of insanity to them, one that weaker demons didn't have but stronger demons never failed to, and Giyuu wasn't sensing any hostility from the boy.

Eventually, the boy's gaze settled on something for the first time since Giyuu had pointed a sword at him. A look of shock and horror found its way onto the boy's facial features, replacing the panicked one he'd worn just a few moments before. Giyuu traced the boy's gaze to the body of the man that the first demon had ripped the throat from moments before.

Blood was still gushing from the wound, but Giyuu realized with a start that the man was _still alive,_ convulsing slightly.

In his moment of distraction, the demon boy _moved, _lunging towards the bleeding man.

_Shit, he's gonna devour him,_ Giyuu thought. He whipped his sword around just a moment too late, narrowly missing the boy's neck, instead cleanly chopping off the ponytail his hair had been done up in.

_You've done it again, let yourself get distracted and now somebody is going to die because of you,_ part of his mind thought even as he whipped around to try for a follow-through swing. Time seemed to slow as he watched saliva drip from the corners of the boy's mouth while he got down on his hands and knees by the convulsing man's side.

Then, Giyuu watched as the boy frantically pushed his hands against the man's neck, ripping part of the victim's own haori off and stuffing it against the wound.

* * *

"Stay with me," Tanjirou chanted, having all but forgotten the demon slayer's presence altogether. "Stay with me, don't you die on me, Suriichi-san."

Tanjirou wasn't sure if the man was fully conscious, his eyes half-lidded and tired-looking, but he kept talking anyways. The small piece from the man's haori that he'd ripped off was becoming soaked with blood _alarmingly_ quickly.

Tanjirou wanted to vomit. The smell of human blood was all that was filling his nostrils and absolutely nothing else was able to get through. The scent made his mouth water and he absolutely hated that, even as saliva dripped from the corners of his mouth.

With one hand still on the man's open wound, applying a careful amount of pressure as to not crush the man's neck with his newly discovered strength, Tanjirou reached down towards the rest of the man's clothing, using his claws to tear through the fabric and get more makeshift bandages.

The fact that he was running out of haori to rip off didn't bode well for the amount that the older man was bleeding. Tanjirou knew the villager since he was a kid, he was the son of the local blacksmith and had bought charcoal many times from Tanjirou. He had a wife and two daughters. The corners of Tanjirou's eyes started to become wet as he struggled to stop the surge of bleeding. The man was gurgling, the convulsions in his body slowing down.

Tanjirou looked around, only to see the street in front of him completely empty, seemingly devoid of any sign of life. He turned around, still putting pressure on the man's wound, and only _then_ did he remember the demon slayer's presence. The older man was standing there, completely frozen and staring at Tanjirou with a flat, dumb look on his face.

"Help me!" Tanjirou choked out, "Please, help me."

The man paused for a second, the confused, flat look stuck on his face. The younger boy bit back a curse, turning back to the task at hand.

"Come on, stay with me," Tanjirou pleaded again. He wasn't sure if the fact that the flow of blood slowing down was a good thing or a bad thing in this situation. Realistically, it could be either, but based on the size of the blood pool on the ground, Tanjirou was leaning towards the latter.

"Tilt his head back and open up the airway," the demon slayer said, kneeling to the ground on the other side of the villager as he stuck his sword into the dirt right next to them. "You need to let as much air as possible get through." Tanjirou did as he was told, tilting Suriichi's chin back and opening the airway.

"Lift the bandage for a moment," the demon slayer said, staring intently at the wound. Tanjirou did as he was told, deciding that questioning the validity of the demon slayer's instructions was the last thing he needed to be doing right now. If anyone knew something about first aid, it would be someone who fought against demons for a living.

For just a moment after the bandage was removed, he got a clear look at the state of the wound. A solid chunk of flesh was missing from where the man's neck should be, showing a disgusting, mangled mass of torn flesh. It was hardly a second before the wound was no longer visible, blood filling the gaps. Tanjirou replaced the cloth. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the demon slayer flinch. It didn't help that Suriichi had gone almost completely still, the trembling that had been filling his limbs a few moments before now absent

Even as Tanjirou grabbed for more clothing to use to soak up the blood, he saw the older man's limbs fall limp at his sides.

"What are you doing?" Tanjirou cried, "We can still save him!"

"There's no saving him," the man mumbled, "he's missing half his windpipe, blood is probably filling his lungs."

The young boy's hands started to tremble. "Then we'll just soak it all up!"

"At that point he's just bleeding out!" the man snapped. His voice went quiet. "We can't save him."

Even as the bleeding slowed and the villager's pulse disappeared, Tanjirou still wanted to help. He'd gone his whole life living peacefully, and to jump from that to the amount of death he'd witnessed in such a short time, well, it was a system shock, to say the least. Tears started to run down the corners of his eyes and he leaned away from the lifeless body, blood staining his hands and clothes.

Tanjirou was so engulfed in the sudden surge of emotion that he didn't even notice the demon slayer stand until his sword was removed from the ground and levelled at Tanjirou, the blue and black edge mere centimeters away from his face.

"What's a demon doing trying to save a human's life?"

* * *

Giyuu had seen a lot of different types of demons during his time as a demon slayer. He'd run into the rabid ones, the insane ones, even ones with some semblance of sanity up until the moment when their source of food was threatened. Out of all demons he'd met, every single one had one thing in common: a complete lack of regard for human life.

Humans to demons were the same as cattle were to humans: livestock. The monsters just saw humans as some sort of lower life-form to be feasted upon and acted as such. No demon would ever try to save a human's life, much less shed tears at their failure to save them.

At least, no demon he'd met up until now.

"What's your goal here?" Giyuu prompted, moving the tip of his blade around a little more. The boy's eyes flickered between the tip of the sword, the dead body of the man they'd failed to save by Giyuu's feet, and the empty street. Eventually, the kid gulped.

"These people are my friends," he said, voice quivering, "I grew up around here, why wouldn't I try to save them?"

Giyuu ignored his counter-question. "Why didn't you try to devour him? You could have done it easily."

An expression flashed across the boy's face. _Disgust?_ When he opened his mouth again, he yet again subverted everything Giyuu had come to expect from demons. "You're a demon slayer, right? Is there a way to turn someone who was turned into a demon back into a human?"  
"What?" The simple statement was all Giyuu could muster.

"My sister," the boy continued, "I want to turn her back into a human."

Giyuu would have gotten even more confused if he'd had time to think about what the boy had said; before he could process the situation further, rustling from across the street caught his attention.

Giyuu's vision snapped over to the sound of the disturbance, only to find that the demon from earlier had partially regenerated and was trying to run away, naked. He was still missing his arms, but the demon had managed to reacquire legs, which was enough.

_Damn it,_ Giyuu thought, pulling his sword away from the boy's neck. He took off at a sprint towards the first demon, who had started to shriek like a banshee once he realized he'd been noticed. It only took a single, swift strike to relieve the demon's head from its shoulders, and this time it would stay that way.

When Giyuu turned around to find the demon boy, he found the street where he'd been kneeling a moment before empty.

_Just my luck._

* * *

When the demon slayer took off, Tanjirou didn't question what was going on. He didn't have the _time_ to sit around and think about why the man suddenly ran off, if he wanted to survive and be able to actually work towards finding a cure for Nezuko, he'd need to avoid getting his head chopped off.

So, as soon as he registered that the demon slayer was gone, he ran. He stood and bolted into the network of alleyways between the village's buildings and didn't even look back. As he ran, he took sporadic, random turns in an attempt to make himself as untrackable as possible. The snow that peppered the ground didn't help to cover his traces, so whenever he could, he ran where there wasn't any. As he fled, he only had escape on his mind.

He wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing that the demon slayer hadn't killed him immediately. The moment he'd smelled a person's blood on the air, Tanjirou had rushed in to help, his legs moving before he could really understand what they were doing, and the fact that there was a demon slayer on the scene was just an unhappy coincidence.

One thing had been made clear to him the instant that the demon slayer levelled his blade at Tanjirou: he could not count on the corps being an ally, at least not for the time being. Sure, he hadn't been killed on sight, but the treatment he got wasn't much better.

Eventually, Tanjirou made it out of town. A glance over his shoulder showed that he wasn't being followed, at least from what he could see, so he doubled down and forced himself to run as fast as his legs could carry him. He needed to get back to where he'd left Nezuko and then take her and relocate before the sun rose.

If the demon slayer was on his tail, he didn't have much time.

* * *

_There's a second demon in the area,_ Giyuu thought as he stalked the back alleys of the town, looking for any signs of tracks or anything of the sort that he could use to track the demon boy, _I should've remembered that!_

_He looks like a fresh demon, can't be more than a few weeks old, but…_Giyuu paused for a moment, _based on the carnage left at the Kamado family home, that was done by a very powerful demon, one who felt like playing with his prey as it killed them. That rules out the boy, and the demon from the village was far too weak, not to mention in the wrong place. Does that mean there's _three_ demons in the area?_

Giyuu shook his head and muttered to himself. "No, there's something off here."

Once he finally found a set of footprints, it wasn't hard to follow the trace. The path deviated a lot, weaving between buildings seemingly at random, but the snow helped to cement the footprints, even when there were long patches of dirt between drifts. Eventually, the prints made their way out of the village and towards the mountains.

Giyuu had no intention of killing the demon right away, not unless it showed signs of aggression, something that it hadn't even so much as hinted at yet. He had too many questions that he needed answered, especially after that scene in the village.

Not once in Giyuu's three years of being a demon slayer had he seen a demon show anything but bloodlust towards humans. Be it the most primal, freshly turned demons or the smartest, most insane demon he'd fought to date (one who had essentially turned an entire small village into a meat farm that worshipped him like a god), not a single demon showed any level of compassion towards humans, not a single demon showed any level of sympathy of human life.

Not a single demon up until now, with this boy.

The tracks led to a small cave in the mountains. It wasn't too far from the village, probably about half the distance from Saburo's home, but it was hidden pretty well. If there wasn't a set of footprints leading directly into the cave, as well as a set of footprints leading out of it that looked a little bit older, he doubted that he'd have found it.

Giyuu slowed to a stop outside the cave, being careful to not let himself be seen. The demon boy was inside, of that much he was certain, but he wasn't sure if there was a trap of sorts. For the time being, he wanted to see if he could get an idea of what was going on inside before he engaged.

Giyuu leaned up against the rocky entrance and strained his ears. Echoing from the inside, he heard the same voice as earlier. "Nezuko?"

_A name?_ Giyuu thought, furrowing his eyebrows. He kept listening.

"Nezuko, come on, you've gotta wake up, we need to leave." The boy's voice seemed panicked and he was talking quickly, fumbling over the words.

Giyuu rested his hand on the hilt of his blade as he heard shuffling from inside the cave.

"I'll carry you if I have to, come on!"

The shuffling and ruffling inside the cave got louder, and Giyuu took that as his cue. He turned the corner, standing in the opening to the rocky interior. What he saw on the inside, while difficult to discern due to the poor lighting, was what looked like the demon boy attempting to haul a smaller girl onto his shoulders. He barely needed to look at her to see the pale skin and fangs and claws.

"I'll repeat my question from earlier," Giyuu said, obviously startling the boy, "what is a demon doing trying to save a human? And who is this?"

The instant the demon boy recognized Giyuu, he went into a panic, setting down the demon girl and scrambling back, holding his arms out in front of her defensively.

"Stay back, we don't want any trouble!" the boy said. Even in the dark, Giyuu could see that his arms were shaking.

_He's...afraid?_ Looking past his arms, Giyuu also took note of yet another odd thing: the demon girl looked like she was _asleep_. He'd never met a demon that slept, they all always just ate humans to recover their energy.

"Look," Giyuu said, "the sword is away, I'm not going to kill you unless you attack me first."

_I can't believe I'm saying this to a demon,_ Giyuu thought. After everything he'd learned demons to be, after everything they'd done to him, it just felt weird. Yet, at the same time, something had consistently struck Giyuu as _off_ about this demon, mostly based on how he acted. There was something different about this one.

Giyuu's assurance that he wasn't going to attack the boy seemed to cause him to relax, even if just a little. He still stood defensively in front of the girl, but his posture wasn't so aggressive.

Before Giyuu could ask his question again, the boy spoke up. "Did you kill the demon that killed Suriichi-san?"

"Surii - " Giyuu paused, taken aback, "You mean the man from the village?"

The boy nodded.

"Yes, I killed it."

A combination of emotions washed across the boy's face at that moment, part relief, part sadness, and part...anger? It was hard to tell, between how bad Giyuu was at properly reading people and the lighting.

"Why did you try to save him?" Giyuu prompted.

The boy looked up, animated irises meeting Giyuu's own. "I already told you, I grew up with those villagers, why would I not try to save them? Suriichi-san had a wife and two children and he was the blacksmith's son. I sold charcoal to them every trip, why _wouldn't_ I try to save him?"

"Because you're a demon." Giyuu said flatly.

_Charcoal_, the word echoed in Giyuu's mind, _That seems important, where do I remember charcoal from?_

The boy's shoulders slumped forwards, eyes falling to the ground. "You don't need to remind me."

Silence fell between the two of them once more, the boy still standing defensively in front of his sister and Giyuu still standing at the entrance to the cave.

So many things were going through Giyuu's head at once. Everything the boy had said so far defied everything he'd come to know about how a demon's mind worked. He wasn't acting insane, he was acting _perfectly human_ and it was throwing Giyuu off. _Who is this boy?_

What came out of Giyuu's mouth, instead, was a completely different question. "Who's the girl?"

"My sister," the boy said, "There's something wrong with her, she won't wake up. The actual reason I was in town was that I was trying to get medicine for her."

"She won't...wake up?"

The boy shook his head. "So much has happened in the last day, I just...there's too much to think about," he looked up from where he'd been staring at the ground. "Please, just leave us alone, we haven't done anything, we don't want any trouble."

Giyuu clenched his fist, "It's against the demon slayer corps code to let any demon who has harmed humans go."

At this, the boy's eyes lit up. Giyuu wasn't quite expecting what came out of his mouth next. "Then you can let us go! I haven't ever hurt anyone, and neither has Nezuko! We'll never hurt humans, no matter what, so you can just let us go!"  
_A demon...who hasn't hurt any humans? _ Pieces started to come together in the back of Giyuu's mind, the dots connecting. _Charcoal, him mentioning the last _day_ specifically…_

"Hey, boy," Giyuu said, his throat tightening, "What's your name?"

The boy paused for a moment. "My name is Kamado Tanjirou and this is my sister, Kamado Nezuko. We were both turned into demons just yesterday when our family was attacked by a demon in the mountains."

_Kamado, same last name as that family I buried. That damned Saburo,_ Giyuu cursed, _I knew there was something he was hiding!_

Giyuu took a deep breath. This changed just about everything. In front of him sat two demons that were simultaneously defying everything he had learned about the monsters up to that point, and they were asking him to let them go.

He couldn't let them go, that much was certain. If he let them go and then they proceeded to attack somebody, it would be on Giyuu's head for letting them free in the first place. At that same time, if what they were saying was true, he couldn't very well kill them, either, at least not without it weighing on his conscience.

_There isn't protocol for this,_ Giyuu thought,_ probably because this situation has never been thought of._

Demons were supposed to be rabid, unruly creatures when they were first turned. Tanjirou was not. Demons were supposed to be insane, merciless killing machines with no regard for human life. Tanjirou obviously was not. If what Tanjiou said was true and neither he nor his sister had killed or even harmed a single human, well…

"I need to take you back to headquarters." Giyuu said. It was the only thing he could think of. He had no doubt that the rest of the pillars would vow to kill the children on sight, no matter their situation, but he trusted Oyakata-sama's judgement, no matter what and under every single circumstance.

If Oyakata-sama wished to kill them, then that would be the end of that.

If Oyakata-sama had other plans, though, then it would be worth it to Giyuu in the end.

"Headquarters? You mean the demon slayer corps headqua-"

Tanjirou didn't get to finish his sentence, because a moment later, Giyuu was on the other side of the cave, smacking the boy on the head with the butt of his katana handle. It wouldn't kill him, far from it, but it would incapacitate him for at least a few hours, which is exactly what Giyuu needed.

* * *

Giyuu pretty much only moved at night. He still wasn't sure how he was going to get the two children all the way back to the corps headquarters considering that they were about three days of travel away, and that was when he was alone and could move at full speed. Hauling two unconscious demon children significantly slowed him, so he was looking at a week of travel at the absolute minimum.

He wasn't sure if he'd be able to keep tabs on the two demons for that long, especially if either of them woke up. Sure, he could keep knocking them out over and over until they got to their destination without worry of causing any lasting damage (they were demons and would just regenerate from any significant harm), but Giyuu also had to sleep. He could skip a few nights but an entire week of travel without rest was impossible.

So, after settling down in a cave in the mountains for the day, he began to contemplate how he could go about things. He'd already sent his crow ahead to notify Oyakata-sama of the situation and that he was en route, so he wouldn't be able to request a retrieval until the crow was back, and by the time that happened he'd be nearly back to headquarters. Giyuu wracked his brain for some sort of solution to make his job easier.

Finally, it came to him. Giyuu knew that he couldn't trust most of the pillars to not immediately kill the two demon children; he himself had taken a lot of convincing and hard evidence that Tanjirou was different than any other demon he'd encountered to not do the same. Without that knowledge, he had no doubt that somebody like Rengoku or Uzui would try to strike the siblings down the moment they understood that they were demons. Sometimes the hatred of demons just ran that deep that it was impossible to convince people otherwise.

There was one fellow pillar that he felt like he could trust, though. Her words echoed in Giyuu's mind. _If a demon who has never harmed a human exists, a demon that chooses to starve itself rather than harm a person, I will take them in and nourish and care for them. _

She'd certainly still take some convincing, but Giyuu felt that he'd at least be able to keep her from killing the children until Oyakata-sama could make a decision on what to do regarding the situation.

Pulling out his map, Giyuu confirmed that the estate was indeed much closer than the headquarters were. If he rushed and made good pace, he might be able to make it in a single night of travel.

Giyuu glanced between an unconscious Tanjirou and the sun outside. All that was left was to wait for nightfall again.

* * *

_Tap tap tap._

Koucho Shinobu was a light sleeper. She'd almost been forced to be because of all the time she'd spent as a child with her sister on the run. Waking up at the sound of somebody shuffling into a room in the middle of the night could mean the difference between life and death for two young, orphaned girls, afterall.

_Tap tap tap._

She was a light sleeper, so it was no surprise that she woke up at the sound of rhythmic tapping from somewhere else in the estate. Turning over in bed, Shinobu tried to drown out the noise with her pillow. _It's probably just a branch hitting the house in the wind,_ she thought.

_Tap tap tap._

She tried again to drown out the noise so that she could fall back to sleep. She had a mission she needed to leave for in just a few hours.

_Tap tap tap._

The irritation began to set in  
_Tap tap tap._

"Ugh," she groaned, pulling herself out of bed. She threw on something light to cover up and headed for the exit of her room. Wherever the tapping was coming from, it would be best for the sake of her own sanity to double check on it. As she was about to slide the door open, her eye caught a glimpse of her personal, modified nichirin blade.

_May as well,_ she thought, grabbing the sword and holding it under her arm. She doubted that there was a demon outside making the noise, but she figured she'd be safe. Although there was a ring of wisteria trees surrounding the butterfly estate to keep most demons out, there'd been a few times in the past where one or two slipped through, as the perimeter on the estate was far weaker than the protective rings around somewhere like headquarters or the mountain where final selections were held.

_Tap tap tap._

With that, Shinobu slid her door open softly, trying to make as little noise as possible, not wanting to wake any of the girls. She followed the incessant tapping, eventually finding that the source of the unbearably consistent sound was actually the front door.

Carefully, Shinobu slid it open.

Standing right outside was a person Shinobu wasn't exactly expecting to see. Tomioka Giyuu stood in front of her, arm outstretched as if he were about to tap on the door once more.

Even more odd than his presence were the two figures he had with him. On his back was a girl in a pink-flowered yukata with a black haori over the top of it, and under his arm was a boy with maroon hair, odd, flame-like scar on his forehead, and a green and black checkered haori over his shoulders.

"Tomioka-san?" she said, voice flat but tinged with annoyance "What are you doing at this unholy hour?"

When Giyuu spoke, his voice was dead-serious, not at all like his nonchalant tone he usually held.

"I remembered what you said."

"Remembered what I…what are you saying, Tomioka-san? Who are these children?"

Giyuu continued. "I remembered what you said about demons. What you said about a demon that has never harmed a human."

Shinobu's heart skipped a beat and her fake smile was replaced by a look of genuine surprise.

Giyuu gestured to the two children. "I have two right here. I hope you'll keep your promise."

It had been hard to tell before, but now that Shinobu looked a little better, eyesight adjusting to the darkness, she noticed it. The boy and the girl, they both had claws adorning their hands and fangs where their canines should've been.

Two demons.


	5. Chapter 5: Interrogation

**Chapter 5: Interrogation**

* * *

_Sorry this took so long to update, y'all. I hit some pretty hard writer's block on a certain scene on this fic and couldn't get past it for the longest time. That being said, I feel like I should let you all know that, even if there's long breaks between updates sometimes, until I specify otherwise, there is always a new chapter in the works._

_Additionally, I recently started a short, 3 chapter fic that is Obanai/Mitsuri, so if anyone is a fan of that ship and hasn't seen the fic, check out my profile. Forewarning that it has manga spoilers of chapter 200, but the fic is called "Gravity" and should be near the top of my works page. I hope you enjoy it if you read it!_

_Now, on to the chapter_

* * *

When Tanjirou came to, the first thing he noticed was the complete lack of light. The only source in the entire area was a small sliver of what he presumed to be sunlight streaming in from a window that had been covered almost completely with a board.

"Where am I?" he muttered, forcing himself to ignore the dull thudding from his temple. He had a huge headache, and his stomach gnawed at his insides. Only when he felt a pang of hunger did everything come rushing back to him, from his family's slaughter to the encounter with the demon slayer in the cave. The last thing he remembered was getting rather unceremoniously beaten across the forehead by the demon slayer's sword hilt.

_Explains where the headache came from,_ he thought, squinting to adjust his eyes to the dark room, _How long have I been out?_

He tried to pull himself up from where he'd been passed out, but was stopped as a painful burning sensation flared to life around his wrists. Wincing, Tanjirou looked down and finally took in just where he'd been sleeping.

He was laying on what looked like an infirmary bed with the back slightly raised as to let him sit up. Unlike the treatment a normal patient would get, however, he was bound to the frame by thick, leather-like straps around both of his arms and legs. Every time he tried to free himself, a burning pain flared to life wherever his skin came into contact with the straps.

_I guess wherever I am isn't very fond of demons,_ he thought absentmindedly.

"Hello?" he tried to call, but his voice came out coarse and raw. He tried clearing his throat, although it didn't help much. "Is anyone here?"

Luckily, someone must have been posted outside of his door, as it creaked open a moment later. Light from outside shone through the crack just enough to light up a man's face, or at least what Tanjirou could see of his face, as most of it was covered by a black and white hood

"Good…" Tanjirou paused, eyes glancing towards the sunlight, "Morning?"

The person didn't say anything in response, but their eyes widened. They slowly shut the door and a moment later, Tanjirou heard a fleeting call. "Shinobu-sama! The demon is awake!"

* * *

"Shinobu-sama!" a very exhausted-sounding Kakushi called, slamming the door to her quarters open quite ungracefully. Shinobu, of course, hadn't been startled by the man's sudden entry; she'd been trained to be keenly aware of all of her senses and had thus heard the screams from halfway across the estate.

"Yes?" she responded cheerfully, not turning away from the batch of poison she was currently preparing.

"Shinobu-sama," the man heaved a breath. "The demon is awake!"

"So I've heard," she said, slowly capping the various bottles of ingredients as she spoke.

"Wait," the Kakushi frowned. "How did you know?"

"I was able to hear you shouting it by the time you got to the courtyard," she responded bluntly, placing the now-sealed vials back where they belonged. She didn't see the man's face, but it wasn't hard to guess that he was bowing.

"Apologies, Shinobu-sama!"

Shinobu sighed, finally turning to the man and standing from her chair. "Which one?"

"The boy."

"Good," she said, grabbing her sword. When she made her exit, the Kakushi stepped aside, although not without hesitation.

"Do you intend to wait for Oyakata-sama, Shinobu-sama?"

Shinobu smiled. "I won't be doing anything drastic, if that's what you're asking," she said. "I just intend on having a short, friendly conversation, is all."

* * *

Giyuu had been watching the various colors of butterflies flutter around the foyer when a Kakushi came screaming like a spooked dog through the open area about the demon being awake.

Reluctantly, the Water Hashira turned his attention away from the mesmerizing colors. Whichever demon it was that had awoken, be it Tanjirou or his sister, Giyuu had been the one to bring them to the estate, so he felt like he was responsible for keeping an eye on them until Oyakata-sama arrived.

Without a word to anyone around him, Giyuu headed for the medical wing where the two demons were being held. Of course, he wasn't quite familiar with the butterfly estate and its layout, so he got a little bit lost along the way.

As a consequence of the time he wasted trying to find the right room, Shinobu was already approaching the door to the boy's room when Giyuu got there.

"What are you doing?" he said. It was an honest question, completely devoid of double meaning. He watched as Shinobu froze in place, hand hovering above the door handle.

"Tomioka-san," she said, voice level. "You heard from the Kakushi?"

He just nodded, watching as she lowered her arm and turned to him, flashing a smile. "I was just going to introduce myself to the demon, I don't plan on taking any drastic actions until Oyakata-sama is present."

"Okay." Giyuu said, walking forwards. "I'll reintroduce myself as well."

Shinobu just sighed and nodded. "Yes, yes, of course you are."

She slid open the door carefully, barely opening it enough to slip in. When Giyuu entered the dark room, only then did he remember that opening the door too much could cause sunlight to enter the room and injure or even kill the demon inside.

Without a word, Giyuu shut the door behind him and leaned up against the wooden frame, allowing for his eyes to adjust to the relative lack of light. Inside, Tanjirou and Shinobu seemed to be in a staring contest, or at least, if you could call it that. Shinobu was gazing at Tanjirou with a flat, emotionless smile on her lips and wide eyes that looked like they were looking _through_ the demon boy, rather than at him.

Tanjirou, on the other hand, was staring back at the insect Hashira with a look that could only be described as half-confused, half-frightened. Giyuu found himself becoming lost in the mesmerizing dance of flames inside the demon boy's pupils.

"Good umm...morning?" Tanjirou was the first to break the ice.

"Hmm…" Shinobu hummed in her high-pitched way. "I suppose it is still morning."

She barely missed a beat before jumping right into her next line. "I seem to have forgotten to introduce myself. My name is Kocho Shinobu, and I am the Insect Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps."

Tanjirou blinked, but quickly bowed as much as his bindings would allow. "Nice to meet you, Kocho-san. My name is Kamado Tanjirou."

Silence fell in the dark room for a moment. As Giyuu leaned against the doorframe, he continued to keep an eye on both Shinobu and Tanjirou, the former because he had no idea what her goal was, and the latter for painfully obvious reasons.

The more Giyuu tried to think of reasons for Shinobu to engage with Tanjirou before Oyakata-sama arrived, the more confused he became. After his initial arrival at the estate the night before and a solid amount of time spent dissuading Shinobu from killing the two demon children on the spot, they'd agreed to notify Oyakata-sama of the situation and ask for his discretion. It hadn't been long before they'd been notified that he was going to be visiting the estate personally and that they should wait for further orders.

Giyuu wasn't good with reading people, especially those who hid all emotion behind a fake smile. So, of course, he picked his next best option.

"What's your goal here?"

Giyuu felt a shudder run down his spine when the other two sets of eyes latched onto him.

Shinobu smiled. "What do you mean, Tomioka-san? I'm introducing myself to Kamado-kun."

"And that couldn't have waited until Oyakata-sama was here?" At this, the corner of Shinobu's lip twitched, but her smile didn't falter.

"I…" she trailed off. She then turned away, breaking eye contact. "I suppose I wanted to see for myself what could have possibly led you to bring not one, but _two_ demons to my home and ask me to shelter them."

Giyuu knew he'd struck a nerve just by the tone of her voice. He was about to explain himself again, for what felt like the fiftieth time since he came to the estate a mere seven hours prior, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he was cutoff.

"Nezuko!" a panicked yell came from Tanjirou, who had bolted upright in his bed. "Where's Nezuko?"

At the sudden movement, Shinobu jumped from the chair she'd been calmly seated in a few moments prior. She now held her arm right above the hilt of her sword, feet spread apart in what Giyuu recognized as a defensive stance.

"Wait," he said, stepping forwards and putting an arm out in front of his comrade. Looking into Tanjirou's eyes, he didn't see a bloodthirsty craze, anger, or anything signifying aggression. That face gave Giyuu that same impression he'd gotten from the boy when he was begging for him to spare his sister. Desperation.

"Nezuko, your sister, right?" Giyuu silently, carefully reached out and pushed down on Shinobu's arm, gently moving it away from her sword.

"Yes!" Tanjirou said, maintaining eye contact. "Where is she? What did you do with her?"

Behind Giyuu, he heard Shinobu let out a breath, and glancing over his shoulder showed him that she was picking back up the chair she'd knocked over.

"Your...sister is in the next room over, bound just as you are. She hasn't woken yet." Shinobu finally said. At this, Tanjirou visibly relaxed, tentatively rolling his shoulders back and slumping against the bed. His head turned to Giyuu.

"I'm sorry if I don't remember, my memory for the moments before you knocked me out are a little fuzzy...what was your name?"

"Tomioka Giyuu." he said flatly, not bothering to note that he hadn't introduced himself in the first place.

"Nice to meet you, Tomioka-san."

"Giyuu is fine," he said on instinct. The only people that called him Tomioka-san were Shinobu and Oyakata-sama, and anytime somebody else said it, he heard it in his fellow Hashira's pitchy voice.

"Then call me Tanjirou!" he said, smiling.

_How can he be so upbeat in a situation like this?_

"Kamado-kun," Shinobu spoke up. "Do you understand the situation that you're in?"

"Ahh...umm, not really," the boy responded sheepishly. He shifted in his bed, and as he did so, his wrists pressed against the straps and Giyuu heard a soft wince of pain.

"You shouldn't move around or struggle too much. Those straps are laced with a wisteria poison that is toxic to demons. The more you push against the restraints, the more it will hurt." Shinobu tilted her head, ever-present smile still plastered on her face.

"I-" Tanjirou looked like he was about to say something, but he evidently decided against it, dropping his head and nodding silently. "I understand."

The room went quiet again. Giyuu continued to study Shinobu, trying to decipher what her goal or purpose of the entire conversation was, but the fake, unwavering smile she wore didn't help him in his goal. Eventually she stood.

"I had more things to discuss with you outside of just introducing myself, but as Tomioka-san suggested, that can wait until Oyakata-sama is present. There's no point in repeating yourself, right?" With that, she turned, headed for the door.

"Ahh..umm," Tanjirou spoke up just before the Insect Hashira reached the exit. "I know this may be out of line considering the situation and the fact that we just met but...Is something wrong?"

Shinobu froze and turned around slowly. "What do you mean, Kamado-kun?"

"Well," Tanjirou continued, "I'm not sure what it is, I've always had a really good sense of smell and I couldn't help but notice a very...harsh scent coming from you. It's hard to explain what it is, but it gives me a feeling that you're angry. I know it doesn't make sense, you've been nothing but polite since coming in here, and you obviously are nice enough to spare me and Nezuko but…" he trailed off.

Shinobu turned back around and pulled open the door slightly. "Of course I'm angry, what kind of demon slayer would I be if I was content with harboring two demons in my home?"

With that she left, closing the door behind her and plunging the room back into darkness.

* * *

Immediately after leaving Tanjirou's room, Shinobu retreated to her quarters, leaving Giyuu to his own devices once again. His colleague seemed to have no intention of making conversation or talking about the matters at hand, and he'd learned by now not to press the issue. For now, he'd just wait out the time until Oyakata-sama arrived at the estate.

Giyuu strode past the Kakushi that were guarding the door and headed for the courtyard, deciding that some time spent relaxing in the foyer would be a good way to ease his mind before Oyakata-sama's impending arrival. _If nothing else, it's nice to look at the flowers,_ he thought.

When he finally got to the open area, he found that he was not alone. Standing in the middle of the garden was a girl wearing a white haori; she was carefully inspecting a butterfly that had landed on her hand.

_That's one of Shinobu's girls,_ Giyuu realized after a moment. He'd been a patient at the butterfly estate more than a few times, so it was natural that he'd become acquainted with most of them. _That's the eldest, if I remember correctly._

As far as Giyuu knew, there were five of the girls, all adopted by the butterfly estate after being orphaned in some capacity. For the youngest triplets, it was a demon attack, which he knew because he'd been part of the team that rescued them in the first place. Additionally, as far as he knew, Shinobu had rescued the loud, middle-child in a similar fashion. The oldest girl, however, evaded Giyuu's memory.

Giyuu stopped at the edge of the building, watching her for a few moments. She just stood there almost completely unmoving and looking at the butterfly with blank, staring eyes, and she had a smile on her face that was almost like the one Shinobu wore all the time, but it had a sense of mimicry to it.

_A mimicry of an already fake smile._ Giyuu thought absentmindedly.

He sighed, finally stepping away from the building and striding out into the open. He slowly meandered through the flowers and other various plants until he finally arrived at the large cherry blossom tree in the middle of the open area.

Giyuu watched as the girl finally looked away from the butterfly, only to gaze at him for a few moments before walking away without so much as a word.

_What a weird girl,_ Giyuu thought, turning to small the tree's flowers.

A few hours later, a Kakushi came to tell him that Oyakata-sama had arrived.

* * *

In the few hours that elapsed after his conversation with Kocho and Giyuu, Tanjirou had tried and failed to find some way to entertain himself as he waited for the door to open again. It was really difficult to find something to occupy his mind when the entire room was dark and his arms were bound to the bed, so he was left to his own thoughts, which was one of the last situations he wanted to be in.

Based on Kocho's parting words, it seemed that he was waiting on someone named 'Oyakata-sama' to arrive, and if the impression he'd gotten from the woman held any bearing, it was most likely somebody that outranked even her and Giyuu.

Outside of worrying about what kind of massive, intimidating swordsman he was going to be coming face to face with soon, Tanjirou had to force himself to not constantly think about where Nezuko was and if she was okay. Kocho had said that she was still asleep and one room over, but that didn't help to ease his mind.

With all the negative thoughts swimming in his mind, Tanjirou wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or not when there was a knock on the door. "Come in!" he called, voice a bit raspy from a lack of water.

Slowly, the door creaked open, a soft orange light filtering in through the opening. _It must be evening,_ Tanjirou realized. Two figures Tanjirou recognized stepped through the door, Kocho and Giyuu, both stepping aside and standing next to the doorway. Then, three more figures entered the dark room: a sickly looking man with a face half-covered by wrinkled, off-colored skin who was accompanied by two white-haired children wearing matching kimonos. They stood by the man's side, holding his hands and acting as supports.

"Oyakata-sama has arrived," the two children said, creepily in sync. At this, they helped the man over to one of the seats in front of Tanjirou's bed before retreating from the room.

_This is Oyakata-sama?_

"Thank you, girls," the man said. At even such a small remark, Tanjirou was instantly drawn in, the man's voice sounding like what could only be described as the auditory equivalent of liquid gold. Past that, Tanjirou found his eyes drawn to the left side of the man's face, where the skin looked like it was withering, and the eye was completely covered by a thick white cataract.

"I'm not what you expected, I presume," Oyakata-sama said, and Tanjirou tore his gaze away immediately.

"Sorry," Tanjirou said, bowing as much as he could given his constraints and winced as the leather strap dug into his wrist again. The man just hummed in response, turning to Kocho and Giyuu, who both had not made so much as a peep since entering the room.

"We should be more accomodating to our guests," he said. "There's no need for restraints right now."

A look Tanjirou couldn't decipher flashed across Kocho's face for the briefest of moments, before being replaced by a smile. "Oyakata-sama, I am not sure if I entirely agree," she said.

"Are you worried he will attack us?"

Kocho opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, as if second guessing her response. It took a moment before she tried again. "I am just worried for your safety, Oyakata-sama."

Oyakata-sama hummed in response, eyes flickering to Tanjirou, then back to Giyuu and Kocho. "I believe two of my Hashira would be more than fast enough to protect me in the case that something goes wrong." He said it like an observation, but with the tone of a command.

There was a long pause where nothing was said but the tension that hung in the air grew. Then, softly, "As you wish, Oyakata-sama."

Kocho broke from her position and walked over to the bed, eyes fixed on the ground in front of her, as if actively avoiding Tanjirou's gaze. Switly, the woman undid the clasps that bound his arms to the bed before returning to her spot by the door as if nothing had even happened.

"That's better," Oyakata-sama said, "Now, Kamado-kun."

Tanjirou gulped as the man's attention turned to him. He'd been rubbing at his wrists, massaging the irritated skin, but the instant the man's gaze fell onto him, he froze. Considering his sickly appearance, Oyakata-sama had an air to him that just drew in any and all attention. Ironically, it made him more imposing. Tanjirou opened his mouth but no words came out.

"I'm sure you're very lost as to what is going on right now," he started. "But I would like to ask you to recite what has happened over the last few days."

"I -" Tanjirou stopped, biting back an onslaught of questions. He had so many things he wanted to ask, from where he was all the way to whether or not the corps had a way to cure demons, but he knew that now was not the right time. If he wanted to stay on Oyakata-sama's good side and actually survive the day, he needed to go along with the flow. "Sure, I can do that." His voice came out uneven, his nervousness showing through the cracks.

For the third time in two days, Tanjirou started from the beginning. He told Oyakata-sama about his family, how they were a large buy happy family who made a living off of selling charcoal, and how his father had died a few years prior. He moved on to the night his family had been slaughtered, not glazing over any details, no matter how much pressure built up in his chest as he relived watching his family dying in his mind's eye.

As he spoke, Oyakata-sama was silent, listening intently without portraying any readable emotions on his face, and as Tanjirou talked, he found his gaze dropping to the bedsheets, unable to maintain eye contact.

He detailed how he had run with Nezuko after waking up, stopping by Old Man Saburo's home before hiding in a cave to wait out the day. Finally, he rounded off the story by telling them about how Nezuko wouldn't wake up and how he'd headed to town to try to get medicine where he'd run into Giyuu and the other demon, before being followed back to the cave he'd left Nezuko in and confronted by Giyuu.

"And next thing I knew, I was here."

Oyakata-sama didn't speak for a moment, and when Tanjirou looked up to meet his eyes, the man was still staring at him with the same contemplating gaze. After what felt like a year, he turned away, looking to Giyuu.

"Tomioka-san, does this line up with your experiences?"

Giyuu simply nodded, which seemed to be enough for Oyakata-sama, as he turned back to Tanjirou and silence fell on the room once again.

"Kamado-kun," he spoke slowly, "Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?"

Tanjirou gulped but nodded. Oyakata-sama smiled.

"Kamado-kun, would you ever consider harming a human?"  
"Never," he responded without so much as a moment of pause.

"Not even to satisfy the worst hunger you've ever felt?"

"I would rather slit my stomach open," Tanjirou said, dead-serious and meeting Oyakata-sama's eyes.

"And if your sister were to harm a human? Would you still protect her then?"

At this, Tanjirou paused. As far as he knew, Nezuko was still sleeping, but if Saburo's words were anything to go by, she was acting more traditionally demon-like than he himself. He couldn't speak for absolute certainty on how she felt.

Of course, Oyakata-sama knew this, he wouldn't have phrased the question how he did otherwise. He'd asked how _Tanjirou_ would _react_, not whether or not it would happen.

"I -" Tanjirou paused, unsure how to put his thoughts into words. "I know Nezuko would never hurt a human. She hasn't yet and I know she wouldn't do it. But if she did, I would take the blame, because I am the one advocating to keep her alive." Tanjirou swallowed the lump in his throat.

Silence fell on the room for what felt like an eternity. Once Tanjirou finished talking, he tore his gaze away from Oyakata-sama, feeling like looking the man in the eyes was causing the pressure in the room to intensify.

"Kamado-kun, I believe you are owed a bit of an explanation," Oyakata-sama's voice finally came. "In the last two days, you've been thrown into an entirely new world, so I'm sure you have a lot of questions."

Tanjirou barely missed a beat. "Is there a cure for demons? Is there a way to turn Nezuko back to normal? Why is she acting so weird and why am I normal? What makes it so that demons are such bad people if I was able to resist? Where am I? How can I cure Nezuko? What -"

"Kamado-kun, one at a time, please." Oyataka-sama interrupted.

Tanjirou stopped mid-sentence, instantly flushing. When he spoke, his voice had gone up two octaves. "Sorry."

Oyakata-sama smiled at him softly and nodded as if to encourage him to speak.

"I guess I'll start with asking why Nezuko is acting the way she is."

"Ahh, started with the hard question, I see." Oyakata-sama turned in his chair, looking at Kocho. "Would you care to explain?"

Kocho nodded. "When a demon is created, they are intentionally made in such a way that their mind is clouded. Many demons don't even remember who they were before they became one and that is by design."

Tanjirou frowned. "I thought becoming a demon was like a disease."

Kocho shook her head. "Not quite. See, no ordinary demon can create another demon. Only the most powerful demons can create other demons, and it's done by mixing demon blood with human blood. As far as we know, when a demon is created, some part of the transformation blocks out the victim's mind while the rest of the transformation eats almost all of the body's energy. What's left is a demon who can't think straight and only knows that they're out of energy, which can only be replenished by feasting."

"So...what you're saying is that Nezuko's mind has basically been locked away?" Tanjirou nervously scratched at his wrist, feeling that the tenderness from the bindings had started to fade.

Kocho stopped. "In a way, yes, you could put it that way."

"Is there a way to get it back?" Tanjirou immediately followed up.

"Well, that's a bit more complicated. As demons become more powerful, they slowly begin to regain their cognitive function. Some regain their memories of when they were a human, but most don't. For many demons, when they're turned, it's like starting a new life, and even those that do remember their previous lives usually only do so after they've had a taste of human blood, at which point it's too late, because nothing else can satiate that thirst."

"I -" Tanjirou started, but stopped almost immediately, realizing that he didn't really have anything to add. That is, until he remembered a very particular detail. "But Nezuko remembers! When we both woke up, she remembered our family!"

Before Kocho could respond, Oyakata-sama put one hand up, silencing both instantly. "This is a subject that I'm going to have to put a hold on for now. This is very clearly a special case, and I have a few things I need to research. Kamado-kun, I'm sure you have other questions."

Tanjirou gulped, swallowing a protest. "Yes, is there a cure for demons?"

"No, not that we know of," Oyakata-sama said, bluntly.

Tanjirou's heart sank. When he spoke again, his voice came out soft and barely audible. "Not that you know of?"

"There's been no reason to search for some sort of cure," Giyuu finally spoke up. "Up until now, every single demon has been a murderer that needed to be put down."

_Needed to be put down._ The sentence echoed in Tanjirou's mind and he realized the gravity of his situation. He was in a meeting - more like interrogation - with the head of the _demon slaying corps_. Something bigger than even himself was going on here.

"I've got a side question," Tanjirou said a bit apprehensively. "How long has the demon slaying corps been around?"

"A few hundred years," Oyakta-sama responded.

_Nezuko and I are the first demons to not kill anyone in a few hundred years?_ Tanjirou thought, falling back against the soft cushioning behind him. There was most definitely some ulterior motive for Oyakata-sama to even be meeting with him. Logically, the best course of action would be to just kill Tanjirou and Nezuko as to not even run the risk of either of them caving and hurting somebody, but that obviously wasn't happening yet.

Tanjirou gulped, but brought himself back to a sitting position, meeting Oyakata-sama's eyes. "Do you think there is a cure?"

Oyakata-sama nodded, as if he'd been expecting the question. "I'm sure there is. However, the only ones that would know about anything like that would be the demons themselves, and I don't think many would be willing to just talk to a weak demon who refuses to eat humans."

"There has to be a way, right?" Tanjirou said, panicked. There was _no way_ he was going to let an opportunity slip by. "A way for me to help? Or maybe a way for you guys to help me find a cure?"

"As much as I would like to let you go try to find a cure on your own, Kamado-kun, the corps cannot afford to take their eye off of you right now. No matter how much merit your story holds, there is always the risk that you or your sister will kill somebody, and then that blood is on the corps' hands for letting you go." Oyakata-sama said it softly and kindly, but there was a little bit of venom behind the words.

Then, finally, an idea sprung to mind.

"Let me join the demon slaying corps."

Immediately, the air in the room went dead. Any and all fidgeting stopped as three of the four people present took a sharp breath in.

"If I train and become strong, I can ask the demons myself. I'll help the corps while searching for a cure," Tanjirou continued. "Please, if there's nothing else I can do, at least let me try this."

Finally, someone other than Tanjirou made a noise when Oyakata-sama hummed. "I'll admit, Kamado-kun. I did not expect that response. Asking such a thing puts us in an...interesting situation."

Tanjirou gulped, finally looking away from his bedsheets to meet Oyakata-sama's eyes again. Both Giyuu and Kocho were staring at the back of Oyakata-sama's head, an unreadable expression on both of their faces.

"Kamado-kun, you're sure about this? The life of a demon slayer is not easy, and many die young."

Tanjirou kept his gaze transfixed on the older man's eyes. "In the last two days, I've lost my entire family to demons, and the only person left is Nezuko. I have to protect her, which means finding a cure no matter the cost."

Oyakata-sama grinned. "I can't say no to that level of dedication."

"Oyakata-sama I'm not -" Kocho's protesting voice came, but she was cut off immediately when Oyakata-sama held up a single hand.

"We can discuss this outside, if you'd like. I can give you my reasoning there, after I'm done talking to Kamado-kun."

"As you wish, Oyakata-sama." Kocho's tone had shifted entirely by the time she spoke again.

Tanjirou watched, still a bit shocked at Oyakata-sama's response as he slowly rose to his feet and walked towards the exit of the room.

"I'm sorry that this meeting is getting cut short, Kamado-kun," he said on his way out. "I don't have the energy that I used to, so I must retire. I will be here tomorrow morning to go over the plan with you, if you truly wish to support the corps. For now, feel free to get up and move around the room, but be aware that there is a guard at the door."

Tanjirou watched as the man pulled open the door and walked out, followed by both Giyuu and Kocho, the latter giving him an unreadable look before taking her leave.


End file.
